From Spirituals to Smash Hits

African American music dating back to slavery forms the basis of the blues, rock ’n’ roll and jazz. This hour, we’ll listen back to a Best of Think episode from December, when we learned about how the spirituals once sung in the fields evolved into the protest songs that paved the way for equality with Baylor University associate professor Robert F. Darden. He’s the author of Nothing but Love in God’s Water: Volume I, Black Sacred Music from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement (Penn State University Press).