People, Locations, Episodes

Harry Burleigh, Gospel Performer born

Harry Burleigh

*Harry T. Burleigh was born on this date in 1866. He was a Black gospel singer and composer.

Harry Thacker Burleigh, the grandson of slaves, was from Erie, Pennsylvania. His grandfather passed on to him the tradition of plantation songs. Burleigh had little formal music training in his youth but was accepted into the National Conservatory of Music at 26. There, he took voice and composition lessons with Antonin Dvorak.

From Burleigh, Dvorak learned about African American folk music (which later was important in his New World Symphony.) There are various estimates of the number of songs Burleigh wrote. The numbers range from 200 to 300. They include arrangements used in Henry E. Krehbiel's 1914 collection, Afro-American Folksongs, a Study in Racial and National Music, "By an' By" (1917), "Go Down Moses" (1917), "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" (1917), and an Old Songs Hymnal in 1929. Over the years, he performed for such dignitaries as the King and Queen of England and President Theodore Roosevelt.

He encouraged the careers of young musicians like Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, Carol Brice, Margaret Bonds, and William Grant Still. Burleigh was a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) when it was formed in 1914 and became a member of its board of directors in 1941. He received honors, including the Spingarn Medal in 1917, and honorary degrees from Atlanta University and Howard University. In 1944, members of St. George's (of New York City) recognized him with gifts of $1,500 and a silver-banded cane. Later that year, he gave the fiftieth annual performance of Jean-Baptiste Faure's "The Palms" at morning and afternoon services.

Burleigh also performed a special broadcast over a local radio station for New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Illness forced his retirement as a soloist in 1946. His son, Alston, was placed first in a Long Island rest home and then in a nursing home in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1948. On September 12, 1949, Harry T. Burleigh died of heart failure at 82.

Two thousand people attended his funeral at St. George's. The pallbearers included composers Hall Johnson, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, William C. Handy, and Cameron White.

To Become a Musician or Singer