To Do This, You Must Know How: Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition

Chapter One. John Work II and the Resurrection of the Negro Spiritual in Nashville

[ 11 ] John Work II and the Resurrection of the Negro Spiritual in Nashville The world needs to know that love is stronger than hatred. —John Wesley Work II The treasury of African American folk song known as the spirituals arose anonymously from slave cabins and brush arbors and was initially perpetuated as an oral tradition. The Original Fisk Jubilee Singers of Nashville, Tennessee, were first to demonstrate the usefulness of the spirituals, the “genuine jewels we brought from our bondage ,” after Emancipation.1 Their singing tours of 1871 to 1875 provided the funds necessary to sustain Fisk University and to build Jubilee Hall, the first permanent structure erected in the South for the purpose of black higher education. These events established a foundational relationship between spiritual singing and black education. Great spiritual singing is characterized by fervent emotive energy subjected to exacting artistic control. Legend has it that George L. White, director of the Original Fisk Jubilee Singers, “used to tell the singers to ChapterOne John Work II and the Resurrection of the Negro Spiritual in Nashville [ 12 ] put into the tone the intensity that they would give to the most forcible one that they could sing, and yet to make it as soft as they possibly could. ‘If a tiger should step behind you, you would not hear the fall of his foot, yet all the strength of the tiger should be in that tread’ was one of his illustrations of this idea.”2 Evenly blended harmonization is another essential quality—each part distinctly expressed, but with no single voice predominating. As celebrated Fisk Jubilee Singer Frederick Loudin explained, “The object aimed at is to make the voices blend into one grand whole—one beautiful volume.”3 By adhering to these disciplines, striking harmonic effects were achieved, along with sensitive interpretations of the underlying sacred and cultural messages of the spirituals. By the end of the nineteenth century, male quartets were beginning to replace mixed-voice choruses as the most popular medium for public performance of Negro Spirituals. The jubilee or spiritual quartet phenomenon predates the advent of gospel quartet singing by at least two decades; but in spite of significant stylistic differences, spiritual Jubilee Hall, Fisk University. (courtesy Franklin Library Special Collections, Fisk University) John Work II and the Resurrection of the Negro Spiritual in Nashville [ 13 ] quartets and gospel quartets represent overlapping, inextricably linked movements in the evolution of African American religious vocal harmony . The methods and principles of spiritual quartet singing directly informed and prepared the way for the emergence of gospel quartets. An abiding respect for music training and education survived the transition. The vigorous application of the formal disciplines of harmony singing at the grassroots level established a design for self-improvement, reinvigorating vernacular quartet singing in much the same way as the perfection of barbershop methodology had done a generation earlier. John Work II: Fisk University’s “Hero of Music” John Wesley Work II was an effective agent of the transition from spiritual to gospel quartet singing. For twenty-five formative years, spiritual singing at Fisk University was Work’s special province. He organized and sang tenor for the illustrious Fisk Jubilee Quartet. He also collected and published Negro folk songs and trained numerous student choirs and glee clubs. Moreover, he exerted extraordinary influence as song leader at the daily exercises in Fisk Chapel, inspiring a new pride in the racial heritage of spiritual singing among the student body. John Wesley Work II was born in Nashville on August 6, 1873, to John and Samuella Work.4 His father, John Work I was born in slavery in 1848, in Kentucky, where he was originally known as Little Johnny Gray; but after being sold to the Work family of Nashville, he adopted the name John Wesley Work.5 As a teenager Work I was sent in service to New Orleans, where he learned to read and write and became fluent in French.6 He reportedly attended rehearsals at the French Opera House, and by “coming there in close contact with theatrical life learned much of harmony, [and] developed a beautiful voice.”7 In 1870, Work I returned to Nashville and married Samuella Boyd.8 He taught Sunday school at a mission of the white First Baptist Church, which eventually became an independent African American church. Granddaughter Helen Work maintained that Work I organized the first choir at...