Blurring Boundaries between Traditional and Commercial
Blurring Boundaries between Traditional and Commercial
Chapter:
(p.224)
Chapter 8 Blurring Boundaries between Traditional and Commercial
Source:
Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry
Author(s):
Sandra Jean Graham
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
DOI:10.5622/illinois/9780252041631.003.0008
By the late 1870s the jubilee marketplace was in full swing, and the term jubilee singer had become so diluted as to be essentially meaningless. All manner of jubilee singers represented themselves as tradition bearers, giving rise to frequent skirmishes over legitimacy that were played out in marketing. As traditional spirituals, contrafacta, parodies, answer songs, and parodies of parodies cycled back on each other, the boundaries between them and their performers blurred. Some troupes, like the Wilmington Jubilee Singers, began as concert artists but ended up as minstrel or variety entertainers. Others, like the Nashville Students, successfully incorporated variety entertainment in their programs while maintaining their reputation as concert artists. The career of Sam Lucas demonstrates the nexus between folk and popular song traditions as the boundaries between the altruistic and the purely commercial, between the folk and the popular, and between “high” and “low” began to dissolve.
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