SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is an American Negro (African American) spiritual. The earliest known recording was in 1909, by the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. In 2002, the Library of Congress honored the song as one of 50 recordings chosen that year to be added to the National Recording Registry. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. (More from Wikipedia)
More recently, “Negro spirituals” are a type of work song that was sung among African American slaves; today, they are recognized as a separate genre of music. Some have become quite famous, and even the likely authorship is known in some cases. Wikipedia reports that “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was written by Wallis Willis sometime before 1862.
(March 2015)
