Spirituals performed by jubilee troupes became a sensation in post-Civil War America. First brought to the stage by choral ensembles like the Fisk Jubilee Singers, spirituals anchored a wide range of late nineteenth-century entertainments, including minstrelsy, variety, and plays by both black and white companies. In the first book-length treatment of postbellum spirituals in theatrical entertainments, Sandra Jean Graham mines a trove of resources to chart the spiritual's journey from the private lives of slaves to the concert stage. Graham navigates the conflicting agendas of those who, in adapting spirituals for their own ends, sold conceptions of racial identity to their patrons. In so doing they lay the foundation for a black entertainment industry whose artistic, financial, and cultural practices extended into the twentieth century. A companion website contains jubilee troupe personnel, recordings, and profiles of 85 jubilee groups. Please go to: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/graham/spirituals/| Title Page Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Folk Spiritual PART ONE The Rise of a Jubilee Industry 2. The Jubilee Singers of Fisk University 3. The Fisk Concert Spiritual 4. Innovators, Imitators, and a Jubilee Industry PART TWO Spirituals for the Masses 5. The Minstrel Show Gets Religion 6. Commercial Spirituals 7. Spirituals in Uncle Tom Shows, Melodramas, and Spectacles 8. Blurring Boundaries between Traditional and Commercial Conclusion: Lessons and Legacies Notes Bibliography Index | A Choice Outstanding Title, 2018
Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society, 2019
— A Choice Outstanding Title, 2018
A Choice Outstanding Title, 2018
Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society, 2019 — American Musicological Society
|Sandra Jean Graham is an associate professor of music at Babson College.