John Wesley Work › Tunes

Short Name: John Wesley Work
Full Name: Work, John Wesley, 1873-1925
Birth Year: 1873
Death Year: 1925

John W. Work, Jr. (b. Nashville, TN, 1872; d. Nashville, 1925), is well known for his pioneering studies of African American folk music and for his leadership in the performance of spirituals. He studied music at Fisk University in Nashville and classics at Harvard and then taught Latin, Greek, and history at Fisk from 1898 to 1923. Director of the Jubilee Singers at Fisk, Work also sang tenor in the Fisk Jubilee Quartet, which toured the country after 1909 and made commercial recordings. He was president of Roger Williams University in Nashville during the last two years of his life. Work and his brother Frederick Jerome Work (1879-1942) were devoted to collecting, arranging, and publishing African American slave songs and spirituals. They published two collections: New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1901) and Folk Songs of the American Negro (1907).

Bert Polman


Tunes by John Wesley Work (9)AsInstancesIncipitsort descending
SOMEBODY'S KNOCKIN'John W. Work, Jr. (Arranged)411321 61155 16535
[Lord, I want to be a Christian]John W. Work, Jr. (Adapter)311335 32111 35653
[I found free grace and dying love]John W. Work, Jr. (Arranged)313111 31113 1651
SWING LOWJohn W. Work, Jr. (Adapter)131311 65111 13555
GO TELL ITJohn W. Work (1871-1925) (Harmonizer)733216 51222 12323
WERE YOU THEREJohn W. Work, Jr. (Adapter)851333 21321 13555
HE IS KINGJohn W. Work (Harmonizer)156123 56123 11223
HEAVY LOADJohn W. Work, Jr. (Arranged)356565 21211 22355
GO DOWN MOSESJohn W. Work, 1871-1925 (Harmonizer)753322 33155 771

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