The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #3744   Message #2500408
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
22-Nov-08 - 07:53 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell It on the Mountain
The printings of Hampton songs after Fenner's death have songs that Fenner never collected.
The 1909 printing was by "Hampton Institute and Fenner," keeping Fenner's name although he was dead. The title of the book given in Trad. Ballad Index also is wrong:
1891 title- "Cabin and Plantation Songs as Sung by the Hampden Students."
1909 title- "Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro as Sung by the Hampden Students."
1927 title- "Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro as Sung at Hampton Institute." (shortened for the title page, leaving out "as sung ...."
(Moreover, some Tuskegee songs are added, and, I believe, a couple contributed by Work).
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W. J. Gibbs, Bromley, Kent, first half of 20th c., published several printings of "Negro Spirituals or The Songs of the Jubilee Singers."
He ran a 'Christian Holiday site' called Ambleside. To Seward's original, he added some spirituals used in later Fisk concerts, but attribution is a little cloudy. This offers problems with citations of Fisk (Jubilee) material. That 1907 date in TBI may reflect one of his publications, but I am dubious about the citation.