Various The Human Orchestra - Various Artists (LP)

(Clanka Lanka) 16 tracks 1932 -1940

All Black vocal harmony groups, from the Original Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1871 to the community based, laboring class quartets of the late 1920s, sang a mixed repertory of secular and religious songs.
Nineteenth century jubilee-minstrels performed popular songs and secular 'plantation melodies' along with their spiritual selections.
In the early part of this century Black quartets were singing jazz songs. A mixed repertoire remained the norm among Black quartets until the 1930s, when two exclusive factions began to emerge, one rendering sacred music exclusively, the other ostensibly restricting itself to secular songs.