1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, 2 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:11,080 Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Voge obam here. When enslaved Africans 3 00:00:11,080 --> 00:00:14,360 Speaker 1: were brought to the America's often their cultural traditions were 4 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:17,400 Speaker 1: the sole possessions they were able to carry, including a 5 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:21,959 Speaker 1: tradition of vibrant, rhythmic communal music. And that's how the 6 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:25,640 Speaker 1: Black spiritual was born. Although white communities had their own 7 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:29,560 Speaker 1: folk spirituals, enslaved people used spirituals as a form of 8 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:33,080 Speaker 1: work song in order to boost their companion spirits, convey 9 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:37,040 Speaker 1: their sorrows, convey secret messages, and seek comfort in God. 10 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:41,959 Speaker 1: We spoke by email with Sandra Jean Graham, an associate 11 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:46,120 Speaker 1: professor of ethno musicology at Babson College and the author 12 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:49,520 Speaker 1: of Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry. 13 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:53,760 Speaker 1: She explained that although enslaved peoples came from many different 14 00:00:53,800 --> 00:00:57,920 Speaker 1: African societies, there were some common musical traditions that brought 15 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:02,480 Speaker 1: about the spiritual. These practices included communal songs featuring call 16 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:05,920 Speaker 1: and response, in which some performers or usually the leader, 17 00:01:06,120 --> 00:01:08,760 Speaker 1: would call a statement or ask a question and other 18 00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:13,640 Speaker 1: singers would respond. Graham said that in these common traditions. 19 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:17,319 Speaker 1: Songs also exhibited a flexible approach to pitch and a 20 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:21,160 Speaker 1: pattern of repetition and variation that allowed for overlapping musical 21 00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:26,319 Speaker 1: layers and quote improvised embellishment of melodies and rhythm. She 22 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:30,000 Speaker 1: also cites Black composer and scholar Alie Wilson, who stated 23 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:32,520 Speaker 1: that there was a preference for a heterogeneous sound ideal, 24 00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:36,199 Speaker 1: or a combination of certain timbers of voices and instruments, 25 00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:40,040 Speaker 1: which was common to many African and African American musical traditions, 26 00:01:41,160 --> 00:01:44,600 Speaker 1: Graham said. In addition, music was usually linked to other 27 00:01:44,760 --> 00:01:48,280 Speaker 1: arts such as dance, poetry, drama, clothing, and it played 28 00:01:48,360 --> 00:01:52,120 Speaker 1: a prominent role in social and political life. And finally, 29 00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:55,800 Speaker 1: music had a spiritual aspect linked to ritual the ancestors, 30 00:01:55,800 --> 00:02:00,440 Speaker 1: the gods that inhabited the natural world. Perhaps most amously, 31 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:04,320 Speaker 1: enslaved people communicated secret messages through spirituals as a way 32 00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:07,000 Speaker 1: to bypass the slave masters who would be listening in 33 00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:10,720 Speaker 1: on their conversations. They sang through coded songs to provide 34 00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:13,280 Speaker 1: instructions that would allow them to escape to the north 35 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:17,400 Speaker 1: than to freedom, particularly on the underground railroad, Graham said. 36 00:02:17,639 --> 00:02:20,960 Speaker 1: Harriet Tabman famously used go down Moses to signal that 37 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:23,720 Speaker 1: she was nearby and ready to conduct people to the north, 38 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:26,480 Speaker 1: and she used wade in the water to direct her 39 00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:29,799 Speaker 1: passengers toward a river if bloodhounds were on their trail. 40 00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:34,519 Speaker 1: According to Graham, Frederick Douglas, who became a prominent abolitionist 41 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:37,960 Speaker 1: after escaping slavery, wrote about singing a spiritual in an 42 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:42,040 Speaker 1: escape attempt, including the words run to Jesus, shun the danger. 43 00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:46,440 Speaker 1: I ain't gonna stay much longer here. However, the enslavers 44 00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:50,240 Speaker 1: caught onto Douglas's plan because they sang too fervently. It's 45 00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:53,560 Speaker 1: possible that spirituals didn't function as much in escape attempts 46 00:02:53,560 --> 00:02:56,560 Speaker 1: as we might think, though Graham says it's impossible to 47 00:02:56,600 --> 00:03:01,200 Speaker 1: know due to the lack of written documentation. But after 48 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:03,280 Speaker 1: the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the 49 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:06,919 Speaker 1: United States, spirituals took on a new purpose in Black communities. 50 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:10,640 Speaker 1: They became a key picture of commercial entertainment during the 51 00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:14,400 Speaker 1: reconstruction era. The songs were arranged as concert music and 52 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:17,520 Speaker 1: then written down and sold as sheet music and in books. 53 00:03:18,280 --> 00:03:21,120 Speaker 1: This new spiritual was intended to be more of a 54 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:25,760 Speaker 1: presentational experience, with performers and observers, rather than a communal 55 00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:30,560 Speaker 1: experience in which all attendees participated. Graham said, so the 56 00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:33,960 Speaker 1: biggest change was that spirituals were presented as art music 57 00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:37,320 Speaker 1: and were also committed to print, removing the plethora of 58 00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:41,840 Speaker 1: opportunities for improvisation and participation that the folk tradition had provided. 59 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:46,400 Speaker 1: And there was one group that popularized this concert spiritual 60 00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:50,119 Speaker 1: more than any other, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who went 61 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:53,600 Speaker 1: on tour to fundraise for Fisk University in the eighteen seventies. 62 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:58,240 Speaker 1: After the singer's tour, their spirituals became branded as Jubilee songs, 63 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:00,440 Speaker 1: which held sway in pop culture the end of the 64 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:04,880 Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. In the early nineteen hundreds, Harry T. Burley 65 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:08,120 Speaker 1: took up the mantle and began composing spirituals for solo 66 00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:11,600 Speaker 1: singers and pianists, which singers like Marian Anderson and Paul 67 00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,160 Speaker 1: Robeson performed in the nineteen twenties through the forties, but 68 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:18,320 Speaker 1: in the latter half of the twentieth century, spirituals fell 69 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:21,919 Speaker 1: out of favor among African Americans. Randy Jones wrote in 70 00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:24,680 Speaker 1: her book So you Want to Sing Spirituals? A guide 71 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:28,680 Speaker 1: for performers. That quote as a result of the rebirth 72 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:31,200 Speaker 1: of racial pride obtained from the civil rights struggles of 73 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:34,960 Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. Anything that appeared to reflect passivity and 74 00:04:35,080 --> 00:04:38,000 Speaker 1: acceptance of the status quo was rejected by the young 75 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:40,640 Speaker 1: warriors who fought in the trenches to reap the rewards 76 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:45,520 Speaker 1: of political activism. According to Jones book, many black activists 77 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:48,440 Speaker 1: turned to gospel music instead, which had risen out of 78 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:51,640 Speaker 1: the rise of Pentecostal warship in the early nineteen hundreds. 79 00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:56,680 Speaker 1: Graham expanded on the difference between gospel music and spirituals, saying, 80 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:00,880 Speaker 1: whereas spirituals focused on the afterlife as as source eventual freedom, 81 00:05:01,279 --> 00:05:04,920 Speaker 1: gospel meaning good news songs focused on the here and now, 82 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:08,520 Speaker 1: how to get through each day. But what about the 83 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:12,200 Speaker 1: connection between spirituals and other musical traditions within Black communities, 84 00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:16,400 Speaker 1: such as the blues. Graham cites theologian James Cone, who 85 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:21,320 Speaker 1: called blues secular spirituals. Graham said they may have been 86 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:24,520 Speaker 1: born in freedom, but African Americans still suffered, and the 87 00:05:24,560 --> 00:05:27,840 Speaker 1: blues was a vessel into which they poured their daily troubles. 88 00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:31,360 Speaker 1: Lots of blues artists even saying spirituals in the blues style. 89 00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:34,680 Speaker 1: But it is true that spirituals are in a sense 90 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:38,080 Speaker 1: no longer a living tradition. The last time they were 91 00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:41,120 Speaker 1: newly created to serve a vital social role was during 92 00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:45,120 Speaker 1: the Civil Rights movement. But spirituals also live on today 93 00:05:45,160 --> 00:05:48,440 Speaker 1: in the imagination of modern day artists like the Macintosh 94 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:52,880 Speaker 1: County Shouters and pianist Laura Downs. Down's forthcoming album Some 95 00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:56,880 Speaker 1: of These Days reflects on social justice themes, particularly through 96 00:05:56,920 --> 00:06:01,960 Speaker 1: her contemporary rendition of spirituals. Downs chose spirituals partly as 97 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:04,120 Speaker 1: a way to connect to her family history and the 98 00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:08,279 Speaker 1: black struggle for freedom. Downs told us via email, my 99 00:06:08,400 --> 00:06:10,360 Speaker 1: dad was black and my mom is white, and they 100 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:12,479 Speaker 1: met at a sit in during the Civil Rights movement, 101 00:06:12,839 --> 00:06:15,599 Speaker 1: and that movement was really powered by this music, these 102 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:18,920 Speaker 1: spirituals and freedom songs. So this music was the soundtrack 103 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,880 Speaker 1: to their activism and their love story. Downs was drawn 104 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:26,239 Speaker 1: to the emotional intensity, defiance, and underlying message of hope 105 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:30,200 Speaker 1: within spirituals. She drew inspiration from performances by black singers 106 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:33,720 Speaker 1: and civil rights activists like Mahalia Jackson and Nina Simone. 107 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:39,040 Speaker 1: For Downs, spirituals represent our conscience and our courage. They 108 00:06:39,080 --> 00:06:42,159 Speaker 1: also remind her of the uneven nature of progress throughout 109 00:06:42,200 --> 00:06:46,280 Speaker 1: US history. She said, they are the best possible reminder 110 00:06:46,360 --> 00:06:48,280 Speaker 1: that the road to freedom is a long one and 111 00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:50,359 Speaker 1: we still have a long way to go, that we 112 00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:53,520 Speaker 1: have to keep moving forward despite roadblocks and hazards, and 113 00:06:53,560 --> 00:07:01,599 Speaker 1: we have the ancestors at our backs. Today's episode was 114 00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:04,120 Speaker 1: written by Terry y'r Lagata and produced by Tyler Clang. 115 00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:06,240 Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of others topics, visit 116 00:07:06,279 --> 00:07:08,880 Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I 117 00:07:08,960 --> 00:07:11,440 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts in my heart Radio, visit 118 00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:13,920 Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 119 00:07:13,920 --> 00:07:15,080 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.