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    Sinful Tunes and Spirituals
    Black Folk Music to the Civil War

    Dena J. Epstein (Author)

    9780252071508

    Paperback / softback, published 12 August 2003

    464 pages, 13 black & white photographs, 4 line drawings
    22.9 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.626 kg

    Winner of the Simkins Prize of the Southern Historical Association, 1979.

    "No previous scholar has told more about the manner of diffusion of African music and dance in the New World . . . . No one else has related with more telling effect the impact that Afro-American musical patterns had upon the sensibilities of the white public."--Lawrence W. Levine, Journal of American History "Epstein has uncovered far more about early black music than anyone thought possible. Her luxuriant quotations and definitive treatments of a wide variety of musical subtopics make the book an essential reference volume and a marvelous storehouse of information."--John B. Boles, Journal of Southern History "Sinful Tunes ensures that we will never again be able to sing or listen to a spiritual in quite the same way. We can now see more clearly than ever before what has shaped it; we have been taken nearer the soul of the music."--Hugh Brogan, Times Literary Supplement "[A] definitive, indeed monumental study of black slave music in America."--Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., Musical Quarterly

    From the plaintive tunes of woe sung by exiled kings and queens of Africa to the spirited worksongs and "shouts" of freedmen, enslaved people created expansive forms of music from the United States to the West Indies and South America. Dena J. Epstein's classic work traces the course of early black folk music in all its guises. Anchored by groundbreaking scholarship, it redefined the study of black music in the slavery era by presenting the little-known development of black folk music in the United States. Her findings include the use of drums, the banjo, and other instruments originating in Africa; a wealth of eyewitness accounts and illustrations; in-depth look at a wide range of topics; and a collection of musical examples. This edition offers an author's preface that looks back on the twenty-five years of changes in scholarship that followed the book's original publication

    Preface to the 2003 Paperback   xiii
    Preface to the 1977 Edition   xvii
    Prologue: The African Heritage and the Middle Passage   3
    Part One: Development of Black Folk Music to 1800   19
    1. Early Reports of African Music in British and French America   21

    La Calinda and the Banza   30
    Other African Dancing   38
    2. More Black Instruments and Early White Reaction   47
    Drums and Other African Instruments   47
    The Balafo   55
    Legal Restrictions on Instruments   58
    3. The Role of Music in Daily Life   63
    Funerals   63
    Pinkster and Other African Celebrations in the North   66
    Worksongs and Other Kinds of African Singing   68
    4. The Acculturation of African Music in the New World   77
    The Arrival of Africans and Their Music   78
    Acculaturation in New Orleans   90
    5. Conversion to Christianity   100
    6. Acculturated Black Musicians in the Thirteen Colonies   112
    The African Jig, a Black-to-White Exchange   120
    Part Two: Secular and Sacred Black Folk Music, 1800-1867   125
    7. African Survivals   127
    Persisting Musical and Cultural Patterns   128
    Black Music in New Orleans, 1820-67   132
    8. Acculturated Dancing and Associated Instruments   139
    Patting Juba   141
    Drums, Quills, Banjo, Bones, Triangle, Tambourine   144
    Fiddlers   147
    Instrumental Combinations   155
    9. Worksongs   161
    Field Work and Domestic Chores   161
    Industrial and Steamboat Workers   164
    Boat Songs   166
    Corn, Cane, and Other Harvest Songs   172
    Singing on the March   176
    Street Cries and Field Hollers   181
    10. Distinctive Characteristics of Secular Black Folk Music   184
    Whistling   184
    Improvisation   184
    Satire   187
    Style of Singing   188
    Other Secular Music   189
    11. The Religious Background of Sacred Black Folk Music, 1801-67   191
    Opposition to Religious Instruction of Slaves   192
    Camp Meetings   197
    Missions to the Slaves   199
    Black Religious Groups   202
    Opposition to Secular Music and Dancing   207
    12. Distinctive Black Religious Music   217
    Spirituals   217
    Attempts to Suppress Black Religious Singing   229
    The Shout   232
    Funerals   234
    Part Three: The Emergence of Black Folk Music during the Civil War   239
    13. Early Wartime Reports and the First Publication of a Spiritual with Its Music   241
    14. The Port Royal Experiment   252
    Historical Background   252
    Earliest Published Reports   256
    Wartime Publication of Song Texts and Music   260
    15. Reports of Black Folk Music, 1863-67   274
    Criticism of "
    This Barbaric Music"
       274
    Recognition of a Distinctive Folk Music   275
    The Shout   278
    Worksongs   287
    Performance Style   290
    Introduction of "
    New"
    Songs by the Teachers   296
    16. Slave Songs of the United States: Its Editors   303
    William Francis Allen   304
    Charles Pickard Ware   310
    Lucy McKim Garrison   314
    17. Slave Songs of the United States: Its Publication   321
    The Contributors   321
    Problems of Notation   326
    Assembling the Collection   329
    Publication and Reception   331

    Conclusion   343
    Appendices 349
    I. Musical Excerpts from the Manuscript Diaries of William Francis Allen   349
    II. Table of Sources for the Banjo, Chronologically Arranged   359
    III. Earliest Published Versions of "
    Go Down, Moses"
       363
    Bibliography   374
    Index   416

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