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Wade in the Water

This article is about the song. For the album by Ramsey Lewis, see Wade in the Water (album).

"Wade in the Water"
River baptism in North Carolina c. 1910
Song
Published1901 New Jubilee Songs
GenreSpiritual
Songwriter(s)Unknown
Composer(s)unknown

"Wade in the Water" (Roud 5439) is an African American jubilee song, a spiritual—in reference to a genre of music "created and first sung by African Americans in slavery."[1]

The lyrics to "Wade in the Water" were first co-published in 1901 in New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers by Frederick J. Work and his brother, John Wesley Work Jr., an educator at the historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, Fisk University. Work Jr. (1871–1925)—who is also known as John Work II—spent thirty years collecting, promoting, and reviving the songcraft of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, which included being a member and director of the Fisk Jubilee Quartet. The Sunset Four Jubilee Singers made the first commercial recording of "Wade in the Water" in 1925—released by Paramount Records.[2][3][4]

W. E. B. Du Bois called the genre of songs to which "Wade in the Water" belongs the Sorrow Songs. "Wade in the Water" is also associated with songs of the Underground Railroad.[5][6][7]

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