The Jubilee Singers and Their Songs

Fisk University was founded in 1866 to provide higher education to African Americans who became free after the Civil War. To raise money for the institution, the school's chorus -- known as the Jubilee Singers -- began performing concerts of Negro folksongs and spirituals. Their popularity and fame spread rapidly. Before the group was disbanded in 1880, it had toured the northern states, performed at Boston's World Peace Jubilee and at the White House, sung for Queen Victoria, and toured Great Britain and Europe. This book recounts their remarkable story and is supplemented by 139 great spirituals, complete with text, and fully notated in both open score and in a two-stave keyboard reduction ideal for rehearsal and performance. Songs include such all-time favorites as "Down by the River," "Go Down, Moses," "Way Over Jordan," "This Old-Time Religion," and many, many more. - Back cover.