COLOURED SINGERS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18231, 15 November 1924, Page 8

COLOURED SINGERS.

DIXIE JUBILEE COMPANY.

MR W. C. BUCKNER INTER-

VIEWED.

Among the arrival© from tho North to-day will bo a compile company of coloured entertainers, known in the United State* and Canada for nearly a quarter of » century as Buckner's Dixio Jubilee Singers. Mr W. C. Buckner is at the head of the company, which hsa toured Western Canada ©ach winter from 1309 to 1923. He was one of tho original members of the Tencssecans, a- company of Jubilee Singers formed some years after tho original Fisk Jubilee Singers, both having originated in Nashville, Tennessee. When the manager of that organisation turned his attention to musical comedy, Mr Buokner did not care for tho change, and ho organised a company, which continued on. the old lines, giving expression to those beautiful plantation songs and jubi;ee hymns which had been associated with the coloured folk since the days of slavery. Scientific analysers of music had claimed, Mr Buckner stated to a Wellington interviewer, that these old melodies were the only real basis of a national music in America, for all other music hed been borrowed from one European source or another. Even that national song, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," was set to the mclodv of "God Save tho King." Vfi\h the negro melodies the case was different. Thcso were created, quite Unconsciously in most cases by tho old mammies crooning away to themselves or their children on the plantations. Now and B S'» they would work in a passage from the Scriptures or a saying of eomo proacher, and that would help them to remember the mdody again, and so these emanations from the heart assumed a definite verbal and harmonic form, and were taken tip by the people, and added to from time to time. Occasionally eeme explorer would probably get among the boys in eomo out-back plantation and take down tho melodies as they were sung, and in this way the storo of songs *""■ spixituelles were added to. "One thing is remarkable about these old songs and hymns," said Mr Buckner, "and that is that though they were 'born in chains so to speak, not ono of them ever breathed tho spirit of revenge or hatred, but rather love religion, the hope of freedom, and the better life hereafter." . Mr Buokner says that the Fisk Instituto (Congregational) is still a very flourishing educational centre, and everv year Mr Myers took out on tour a comp'any of jubiloe singers to augment its funds. A great man there was John Work, who occupied the chair ofGrcek and Latin, whilst his brother, *le&. Work, was known nationally as a compiler of nogro folk eongs. There was another fine educational centre for coloured people at Tuskcgee (Alabama), where the first industrial school attached to a high school was established, Now every hi»h school in the States had such a department thanks to a graat extent to its originator! the late Mr Booker T. Washington (a graduate of Hampton University, Virginia), whose great work for tho eocial and educational emancipation of the coloured man would never he forgotten. Mr Buckner know Mr Washington personally, and believed that his premature death was due to the hard work ho did on behalf of his fellow-negroos. This was at length reoognlsed by tho late. Mr Andrew Carn6gie, who fiade an endowment of 600,600 dollars for the work, 2000 dollars a year being eet asid« to enable Mr Washington to do his work untrammelled by care. *

The Buckner organisation will probnbly tour Ne* Zoalarid for six months, And Australia for eighteen months.

Tho company will open its Christchurch season in the Caledonian Hall to-night in a programme of widely-diversified negro melodies, hymns, ballads, folk songs, and minWard, Lady Ward and party and the Hon. Sir Jameß Carroll and party will attend tonight's concert, the box plans for which ara at The Bristol.