Read complete books and articles on: Spirituals

Spiritual - a religious folk song of American origin, particularly associated with African-American Protestants of the southern United States. The African-American spiritual, characterized by syncopation, polyrhythmic structure, and the pentatonic scale of five whole tones, is, above all, a deeply emotional song. The words are most often related to biblical passages, but the predominant effect is of patient, profound melancholy. The spiritual is directly related to the sorrow songs that were the source material of the blues (see jazz), and a number of more joyous spirituals influenced the content of gospel songs (see gospel music).

Beginning in the late 19th cent., when a celebrated chorus from Fisk Univ. traveled throughout the United States and abroad, wide attention was given to the spirituals of American blacks. This body of song was long thought to be the only original folk music of the United States, and research into its origin centered mainly on the nature and extent of its African ancestry. Because slaves were brought to the United States from many parts of Africa, no single African musical source is clear. Elements that African music and American black spirituals have in common include syncopation, polyrhythmic structure, the pentatonic scale, and a responsive rendition of text. Audience participation increased the improvisatory nature of the spirituals, with the result that tens and even hundreds of versions of a single text idea exist.

Early in the 20th cent., Cecil Sharp explored the extent of American folk-song literature, much of which he demonstrated to be of British ancestry. After that discovery, G. P. Jackson traced the considerable influence of revivalist and evangelist songs from the early 19th-century camp meetings of the Southern white population. Jackson claimed, using hundreds of comparative examples, that many black spirituals were adapted from or inspired by these white spirituals. African musical traditions were apparently amalgamated with the religious songs of the white South, which had many sources, to produce a form of folk music that was distinctly black in character.

Collections and arrangements of spirituals have been made by R. Johnson and J. W. Johnson, R. N. Dett, G. L. White, J. A. Lomax and A. Lomax, R. Hayes, and others. See also G. P. Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (1933) and Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America (1937); G. P. Jackson, White and Negro Spirituals (1943); L. Jones, Blues People (1963); J. Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues (1980).

Show Excerpt Only

14 of the Best Books and Articles on: Spirituals

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Choral Arrangements of the African-American Spirituals: Historical Overview and Annotated Listings » Read Now
by Patricia Johnson Trice. 235 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Although the choral arrangements of the African-American spirituals constitute the largest group of folk song arrangements in western literature, they have received little scholarly attention. This book provides the needed historical and stylistic information about the spirituals and the...
Read More

Although the choral arrangements of the African-American spirituals constitute the largest group of folk song arrangements in western literature, they have received little scholarly attention. This book provides the needed historical and stylistic information about the spirituals and the arrangements. It traces the history and cultural roots of the genre through its inception and delineates the African and European characteristics common to the original folk songs and arrangements. Ensembles that have perpetuated the growth of the spiritual arrangements--from the Fisk Jubilee Singers of the 1870s through those currently active--are chronicled as well.
Show less
2.

An Index to African-American Spirituals for the Solo Voice » Read Now
by Kathleen A. Abromeit. 204 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Spirituals were an intrinsic part of the African-American plantation life and were sung at all important occasions and events. This volume is the first index of spirituals to be compiled in more than half a century and will be an important research tool for scholars and students of African-American history and music.
3.

Deep River: Reflections on the Religious Insight of Certain of the Negro Spirituals » Read Now
by Howard Thurman. 96 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...Religious Insight of Certain of the Negro Spirituals HOWARD THURMAN Illustrated by...religious insights of certain of the Negro spirituals. These reflections were first...
4.

African-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale, and Dance, 1600s-1920: An Annotated Bibliography of Literature, Collections, and Artworks » Read Now
by Eileen Southern, Josephine Wright. 371 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

"As any well-organized, carefully annotated bibliography does, this work by Southern and Wright brings order out of chaos. The 2,328 entries identify books, articles, sermons, pamphlets, and broadsides, among other formats, all centered on black folk culture with emphasis on the manifestations of...
Read More

"As any well-organized, carefully annotated bibliography does, this work by Southern and Wright brings order out of chaos. The 2,328 entries identify books, articles, sermons, pamphlets, and broadsides, among other formats, all centered on black folk culture with emphasis on the manifestations of that culture from 1600 to 1920 through song, dance, games, sermons, and illustrations. . . . This carefully done and useful bibliography is recommended for libraries on all campuses where there is an interest in the black experience." Choice
Show less
5.

The Music and Dance of the World's Religions: A Comprehensive, Annotated Bibliography of Materials in the English Language » Read Now
by E. Gardner Rust. 476 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Despite the world-wide association of music and dance with religion, this is the first full-length bibliography on the subject from a global perspective. The work consists of 3,816 references divided among 37 chapters. It covers tribal, regional, and global religions and such subjects as shamanism...
Read More

Despite the world-wide association of music and dance with religion, this is the first full-length bibliography on the subject from a global perspective. The work consists of 3,816 references divided among 37 chapters. It covers tribal, regional, and global religions and such subjects as shamanism, liturgical dance, healing, and the relationship of music, mathematics, and mysticism. The referenced materials display such diverse approaches as analysis of music and dance, description of context, direct experience, observation, and speculation. The references address topics from such disciplines as sociology, anthropology, history, linguistics, musicology, ethnomusicology, theology, medicine, semiotics, and computer technology.
Show less
6.

Honoring the Ancestors: An African Cultural Interpretation of Black Religion and Literature » Read Now
by Donald H. Matthews. 171 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

Donald Matthews affirms once and for all the African foundation of African-American religious practice. His analysis of the methods employed by historians, social scientists, and literary critics in the study of African-American religion and the Negro spiritual leads him to develop a methodology...
Read More

Donald Matthews affirms once and for all the African foundation of African-American religious practice. His analysis of the methods employed by historians, social scientists, and literary critics in the study of African-American religion and the Negro spiritual leads him to develop a methodology that encompasses contemporary scholarship without compromising the integrity of African-American religion and culture. Because the Negro spiritual is the earliest extant body of African-American folk religious narration, Matthews believes that it holds the key to understanding African-American religion. He explores the works of such seminal black scholars as W. E. B. DuBois, Melville Herskovits, and Zora Neale Hurston, tracing the early development of the African-centered approach to the interpretation of African-American religion. This approach involves "cultural/structuralism", the author's term for the method used by DuBois, Herskovits, and Hurston that emphasizes the thick reading of narrative expressions. Such a reading allows the scholar to identify the cultural significance of particular oral and written texts and serves as a point of identification and a cultural link between African and African-American religion. Matthews' close analysis of the spiritual employs a dialectical and postmodernist reading and reveals a religious philosophy that addresses the deepest concerns and desires of Africans in America. These concerns are cultural, political, and psychological, but are ultimately related to African religious structures of meaning. This book poses a challenge to end the battle between Afrocentrists and multiculturalists by acknowledging their common intellectual heritage in the works of DuBois, Herskovits, and Hurston. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of African-American religion and culture and those interested in Afrocentric literature.
Show less
7.

Old Ship of Zion: The Afro-Baptist Ritual in the African Diaspora » Read Now
by Walter F. Pitts. 194 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

This book retraces the African origins of African-American forms of worship. During a five-year period in the field, Pitts played the piano at and recorded numerous worship services in black Baptist churches throughout rural Texas. His historical comparisons and linguistic analyses of this material...
Read More

This book retraces the African origins of African-American forms of worship. During a five-year period in the field, Pitts played the piano at and recorded numerous worship services in black Baptist churches throughout rural Texas. His historical comparisons and linguistic analyses of this material uncover striking parallels between "Afro-Baptist" services and the religious rituals of Western and Central Africa, as well as other African-derived rituals in the United States Sea Islands, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Pitts demonstrates that African and African-American worship share an underlying binary ritual frame: the somber melancholy of the first frame and the high emotion of the second frame. Pitts's revealing perspective on this often misunderstood aspect of African-American religion provides an investigative model for the study of diaspora cultural practices and the residual influence of their African sources.
Show less
8.

Our Living Traditions: An Introduction to American Folklore (Chap. 10 "The Glory Songs of the Lord") » Read Now
by Tristram Potter Coffin. 294 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...1898 1959 as well as a host of articles on balladry, spirituals, and general folklore. From 1955- 1961, he edited the...specialist in folk religion, he is author of...
9.

Rhythm and Resistance: Explorations in the Political Uses of Popular Music (Chap. 3 "The Spirituals, Gospel, and Resistance") » Read Now
by Ray Pratt. 246 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Beginning with the spirituals of the slaves and the gospel of the black church and continuing through the blues, jazz forms, country, folk, and rock, Rhythm and Resistance presents popular music as part of a continuing effort, over two centuries, to create community values and identity in the face...
Read More

Beginning with the spirituals of the slaves and the gospel of the black church and continuing through the blues, jazz forms, country, folk, and rock, Rhythm and Resistance presents popular music as part of a continuing effort, over two centuries, to create community values and identity in the face of social transformations. The book refutes the idea that the use of popular music for expression by a "socially marginal" society is new. The author demonstrates that popular music as an expression of community identity is centuries old.
Show less
10.

Theological Music: Introduction to Theomusicology ("The Sacred" begins on p. 6) » Read Now
by Jon Michael Spencer. 188 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

This book establishes theomusicology as a valid research approach to studying world religious, mythological, and ethical beliefs via music. Spencer divides his work into two parts. Part one, The Domain of Theomusicology, functions as a methodological exposition to Part Two. It defines the meaning of...
Read More

This book establishes theomusicology as a valid research approach to studying world religious, mythological, and ethical beliefs via music. Spencer divides his work into two parts. Part one, The Domain of Theomusicology, functions as a methodological exposition to Part Two. It defines the meaning of and suggested method for theomusicology and delineates the theomusicologist's best and broadest possible perspective on the world. Part Two, The Discourses of Theomusicology, illustrates how theomusicology combines dialogue with different disciplines as well as a gamut of historical epochs and movements.
Show less
11.

The Gospel-Singing Convention in South Georgia, in Journal of American Folk-lore » Read Now
by David H. Stanley. 32 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...first student of what he called "white spirituals" or "spiritual folksongs," refers to...culturally if not esthetically, as the "spirituals." Gospel songs are print-related...
12.

The Music Lover's Handbook ("Morton Gould: Spirituals for Orchestra" begins on p. 234) » Read Now
by Elie Siegmeister. 820 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Kaufman 233 Morton Gould: Spirituals for Orchestra, by Robert Bagar...a people for whom chants, hymns, or spirituals carry the greatest meaning in life...She sang...
13.

Spiritual Interrogations: Culture, Gender, and Community in Early African American Women's Writing » Read Now
by Katherine Clay Bassard. 183 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

The late eighteenth century witnessed an influx of black women to the slave-trading ports of the American Northeast. The formation of an early African American community, bound together by shared experiences and spiritual values, owed much to these women's voices. The significance of their writings...
Read More

The late eighteenth century witnessed an influx of black women to the slave-trading ports of the American Northeast. The formation of an early African American community, bound together by shared experiences and spiritual values, owed much to these women's voices. The significance of their writings would be profound for all African Americans' sense of their own identity as a people.
Katherine Clay Bassard's book is the first detailed account of pre-Emancipation writings from the period of 1760 to 1863, in light of a developing African American religious culture and emerging free black communities. Her study--which examines the relationship among race, culture, and community--focuses on four women: the poet Phillis Wheatley and poet and essayist Ann Plato, both Congregationalists; and the itinerant preacher Jarena Lee, and Shaker eldress Rebecca Cox Jackson, who, with Lee, had connections with African Methodism.
Together, these women drew on what Bassard calls a "spirituals matrix, " which transformed existing literary genres to accommodate the spiritual music and sacred rituals tied to the African diaspora. Bassard's important ill
Show less
14.

Culture on the Margins: The Black Spiritual and the Rise of American Cultural Interpretation » Read Now
by Jon Cruz. 289 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

"A splendid and important book that clearly establishes Jon Cruz as one of the most significant cultural sociologists of his generation. The scope, depth, and originality of his theoretical analysis contributes to the general project of understanding cultural production, cultural 'objects,' and...
Read More

"A splendid and important book that clearly establishes Jon Cruz as one of the most significant cultural sociologists of his generation. The scope, depth, and originality of his theoretical analysis contributes to the general project of understanding cultural production, cultural 'objects,' and cultural interpretation and appropriation. The richness of his deployment of historical materials--whether travel diaries, sermons, or early journal articles--brings his analytic framework alive. Because his book engages crucial debates in history, ethnic studies, and cultural studies as well as in sociology, it should have a wide readership among academics in many fields."--Elizabeth Long, Rice University
Show less