Gospel Quintet Songs

Eureka Springs, Ar: Thoro Harris, 1932. Very good.. [192]pp. Original yellow wrappers printed in black, with photographic group portrait on front wrapper, stapled. Moderate soiling to wrappers, old coffee mug stain on front wrapper, short tear to top joint of rear wrapper. Short closed tear to fore edge of first several leaves, textblock toned and mildly brittle along edges. A rare edition of this African American songbook previously published with fewer songs by the same compiler in Chicago; this edition was printed in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Thoro Harris was a noted music publisher and former student at Howard University who was noted as "mulatto" on the 1880 census. Harris was known to carry around a bag of his songbooks wherever he went; he spent the final twenty-plus years of his life in Eureka Springs, moving there in 1932 and passing away there in 1955. The text contains the words and music to 230 songs, including "Balm in Gilead," "Rock of Ages," "Swing Low," and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." The front cover is illustrated with a group portrait of an unidentified quintet composed of five African American musicians. Not recorded in Blockson, and with just four copies in OCLC, at Emory, Appalachian State, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary.