The Fisk Jubilee Singers won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album last night for an album celebrating the Sesquicentennial of the founding of the Fisk University Jubilee Singers. The school was founded during Reconstruction to educate freedpeople in Tennessee in 1866. The album, “Celebrating Fisk! The 150th Anniversary Album” commemorates the establishment of Fisk University. The Fisk Jubilee Singers started in 1871 to spread the good news about the school. They have toured nationally and internationally for a century and a half. Here is a video on the making of the recording.
Here is a video of a live performance of Wade in the Water:
Note: Feature illustration shows the original Fisk Jubilee singers of the 1870s.
