Classic study of black slave music in America.
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
Dena J. Epstein (1916-2013) was a retired assistant music librarian at the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, and a past president of the Music Library Association.
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
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