Customer Reviews

Spirits That Dwell in Deep Woods: The Prayer and Praise Hymns of the Black Religious Experience

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The title of this book is a phrase used by Booker T. Washington to describe evenings in his slave childhood, when families sat around the fire discussing spiritual mysteries and paradoxes. These "prayer and praise hymns" (or "neo-spirituals, as Zora Neale Hurston called them) are born of such mysteries, created by men and women of the rural South from approximately 1885 to 1925, navigating their way through the paradoxical time following emancipation, when they were no longer slaves, yet not really free.

This genre is not well known and, were it not for Dr. Walker's work, might have passed into obscurity. This awe-inspiring collection (originally published in three volumes under the same title) presents the music and lyrics for 24 songs, arranged for four part harmony. Each song includes an introduction, brief discussion of its Biblical basis, theological mooring, lyric and form analysis, and contemporary significance.

You can also experience this music on a CD of the same name. As I write this review, I don't see the CD here at Amazon but it and a companion songbook are available from GIA Publications Inc. giamusic.com

Curator, AfroAmericanHeritage.com

I ordered this book because of the respect I have for Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker. He is the go to person if you are studying and/or interested in the music and study of black religious hymnals that go back to African culture. In a class that I took from him he took time to study to songs of members of his church who were 90 years old and more. They began to sing songs he could not find written and it seemed they all knew the tune many had different words. This book I believe was born in these meetings