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African American concert singers before 1950

Marian Roberts, Roland Hayes, and Paul Robeson were among the most visible early African American concert singers, but they were not the only ones. Many others were involved in the arts as concert singers and, given the times in which they lived, achieved tremendous results in the face of great adversity and helped pave the way for the post-1950 African American vocal artist. Drawn from articles, reviews, programs, biographical sources, and interviews, this work is a survey of the unknown early African American concert singers. Much of the information from periodicals was taken from The New York Amsterdam News, The Chicago Defender, and The New York Age. The book covers the African Americans who came before Roberts, Hayes, and Robeson, and details the opportunities available in Europe for black concert singers.

Autobiographical reminiscences of African-American classical singers, 1853-present : introducing their spiritual heritage into the concert repertoire

This comprehensive book of autobiographical writings, interviews, and articles reveals the thoughts and lives of African-American musicians, examining their place in musical performance and their role in introducing the Negro spiritual into the classical repertoire. The list of individuals this study looks at includes Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, the Original Fisk University Jubilee Singers, and Sissieretta Jones in the 19th century, early pioneers of the 20th century - E. Azaliah Hackley, Julius Bledsoe, Eva Jessye and Roland Hayes-their successors Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, Todd Duncan, Camilla Williams and Dorothy Maynor-followed in the later 20th and early 21st centuries by Leontyne Price, William Warfield, George Shirley, Shirley Verrett, Grace Bumbry, Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Vinson Cole, Mark S. Doss and Denyce Graves.

Reminiscences of my days with Roland Hays