August 6, 1871 – September 7, 1925
Professor, choral director and first African-American collector of folk songs and spirituals
From Nashville, Tennessee
Served in Nashville
Affiliation: Christian
"When I was a seeker
I sought both night and day
I asked the Lord to help me
And he showed me the way"
Work is on the far right.
John Wesley Work is said to have been the first black collector of Negro folksongs, and was most likely born on August 6, 1871 in Nashville, Tennessee. His father, John Wesley Work, was a church choir director in Nashville, where he wrote and arranged music for his choirs. Some of his choristers were members of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers.
He attended Fisk University in Nashville where he studied Latin and history. Singing in the Mozart society while at school sparked an interest in Negro spirituals in Work. Following graduation, Work went on to teach for a year, studying for one year at Harvard University, and a year as a library assistant at Fisk University. In 1898, he received a Master’s degree from Fisk and took an appointment as a Latin and Greek instructor.
While teaching, Work became a leader in the movement to preserve, study, and perform Negro spirituals. He organized Fisk singing groups about 1889. With the help of his brother, Frederick Jerome Work ,John Wesley Work, Jr., collected, harmonized, and published a number of collections of slave songs and spirituals. The first of these collections was New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, in 1901.
Among the other solo songs he published, the spiritual, "Go, Tell It On The Mountain" was issued in 1907. In 1915, Work published "Folk Song of the American Negro."
For as many as eighteen years, Work trained and performed with professional and student groups of the Jubilee singers. His wife, Agnes Haynes Work, was a singer who helped train the Fisk group. Because of negative feelings toward Black folk music at Fisk, he was forced to resign in 1923.
John Wesley Work, Jr. then served as president of Roger Williams University in Nashville, until his death on September 7, 1925.
One son, Julian, became a professional musician and composer. Another son, John Wesley Work III became famous in his own right as a collector, composer and educator at Fisk. He wrote American Negro songs and spirituals; a comprehensive collection of 230 folk songs, religious and secular in 1940. Additional biographical materials on this son follow.
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