I can strongly recommend this one.~Susan
Index to Negro Spirituals, published in 1937 by the Cleveland Public Library and reissued through The Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, Chicago, 1990.
FOREWORD TO THE REVISED EDITION
The first collection of Negro slave songs appeared in 1843, without musical notation, in a series of three articles by a Methodist Church missionary known only as "c." Collections that included musical notation began to appear in the 1850s, and such collections proliferated following the Civil War. Many of the collections are not represented in this Index-The Harp of Freedom (1859), by George Washington Clark, and the Old Plantation (1859) by James Hungerford, among them. In 1864 the anonymous article titled "The Original Negro War" included eleven spirituals among its thirteen songs. In 1867, what would become the most important of all collections of spirituals was published-- Slave Songs of the United States, by William Frances Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison.
In 1871 The Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, which had been founded just five years earlier, began to introduce the spirituals to the public in their concert tours in order to raise money for their financially troubled school. Beginning in 1872, editions of the slave songs ''as sung by the Jubilee Singers" began to appear, and in that same year a proliferation of such collections began, with publications of the songs by other Fisk-inspired college and professional singing groups, including those of Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute.
Later, black collectors and composers such as John and Frederick Work, at Fisk University, and the brothers James Weldon and I. Rosamond Johnson began to anthologize the spirituals, and Harry T. Burleigh began to treat them as art songs. Singers such as Roland Hayes, Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, and others began to include them on art song recitals and even, in Robeson's case, to present entire recitals made up of spirituals. Composers of concert music had also begun to use the spirituals and other slave songs in their extended works. R. Nathaniel Dett, for example, used them in his The Chariot Jubilee, a cantata, in 1919, and William Grant Still based the themes in the last movement of his AfroAmerican Symphony on spirituals. The slave song had become acceptable to the black middle class and to the larger society and was important to performers, composers, and scholars alike.
So it was apropos, in the 1930s, that the WPA saw fit to sponsor a project to index the songs that had been included in collections. The result was Index to Negro Spirituals, published in 1937 by the Cleveland Public Library. The Center for Black Music Research is pleased and honored to bring out this publication in a new printing, newly typeset for the use of scholars, performers, and other users. This revised edition is dedicated to the Cleveland Public Library for its
early sponsorship of such a project, its guardianship of the publication, which was never widely distributed, and for granting permission for its reissue.
The original edition of the Index to Negro Spirituals included call numbers of the books, referencing locations in The Cleveland Public Library. This revised edition has omitted the call numbers because they are no longer valid for the Cleveland library, due to reclassification of the collection, and because of our intention to provide information that is useful to a wider audience. All other editing has been guided by the intention of providing consistency of style throughout the work and has been limited strictly to stylistic matters.
Samuel A. Floyd, Jr.
Center for Black Music Research
Columbia College, Chicago
September 1, 1990
PREFACE
The aim in arranging this Index to Negro Spirituals has been threefold: First, to list the books in which any given spiritual may be found; second, to aid in locating quickly a song that is requested under a different title; and third, to note as variants spirituals which, though they may have identical titles, are slightly different.
Cross references are given to songs similar in theme, tune, or wording but not enough alike to be listed as variants under the same title. The same treatment is given spirituals in no way related but having similar titles. If several entirely different spirituals have an identical title, a Roman numeral has been placed after the title to indicate these different songs.
Thirty popular collections, including those most widely duplicated in branches, have been indexed. No attempt has been made to compile an exhaustive index. The work of indexing was initiated at Sterling Branch Library and supplemented and duplicated for general distribution as a Works Progress Administration project.
Detailed information, such as the locality in which a song originated, has not been included. Supplementary information of this type may readily be found in the collections themselves as many of the books indexed contain both music and exposition.
List of Books Fully or Partially Analyzed in the Index
Abbot, F. H. Eight negro songs. New York: Enoch & Sons, 1923.
Allen, W. F. Slave songs of the United States. New York: A. Simpson & Co., 1867.
Ballanta-Taylor, N. G. Saint Helena Island spirituals. New York: G. Schirmer, 1925.
Burleigh, H. T. Negro spirituals. London: G. Ricordi, 1917-1919.
------------ . Plantation melodies old and new. New York: G. Schirmer, 1901.
Burlin, N. C. Hampton series negro folk-songs. New York: G. Schirmer, 1918-1919.
Dann, H. E. Fifty-eight spirituals for choral use. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1924.
Dett, R. N. Religious folk-songs of the negro, as sung at Hampton Institute. Hampton, Va.: Hampton Institute Press, 1927.
Diton, Carl. Thirty-six South Carolina spirituals: Collected and harmonized by Carl Diton for church, concert, and general use. New York: G. Schirrner, 1928.
Fenner, T. P. Religious folk songs of the negro. Hampton, Va.: The Institute Press, 1909.
Fisher, W. A. Seventy negro spirituals. Boston: Oliver Ditson Co., 1926.
-----------------.Ten negro spirituals. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1925.
Frey, Hugo. Collection of 25 selected famous negro spirituals. New York: Robbins-Engel, 1924.
Grey, Gerald. Fifty negro spirituals. York, Nebr.: J. A. Parks Co., 1930.
Grissom, M. A. Negro sings a new heaven. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1930.
Jessye, E. A. My spirituals. New York: Robbins-Engle, 1927.
Johnson, Hall. The Green pastures spirituals. New York: Carl Fischer, 1930.
Johnson, J. R. Utica jubilee singers spirituals. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1930.
Johnson, J. W. The book of American negro spirituals. New York: Viking Press, 1925.
---------------. The second book of negro spirituals. New York: Viking Press, 1926.
Jubilee and plantation songs: Characteristic favorites, as sung by the Hampton students, Jubilee Singers, Fisk University students, and other companies; also a number of new and pleasing selections. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1887.
Kennedy, R. E. Mellows: A chronicle of unknown singers. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925.
-------------------. More mellows. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1931.
Krehbiel, H. E. Afro-American folksongs: A study in racial and national music. New York: G. Schirmer, 1914.
McIlhenny, E. A. Befo' de war spirituals: Words and melodies. Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1933.
Niles, J. J. Seven negro exaltations. New York: G. Schirmer, 1929.
Noble, G. C. Most popular plantation songs. New York: Hines, Noble & Eldredge, 1911.
Sandburg, Carl. The American songbag. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927.
White, C. C. Forty negro spirituals. Philadelphia: Theodore Presser, 1927.
Wier, A. E. The Scribner radio music library, volume seven. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1931.
Work, F. J. Folk songs of the American negro. Nashville: Work Bros. & Hart Co., 1907.