Henry Thacker Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1866. His grandfather, who taught his grandson to sing traditional spirituals and slave songs, had been born a slave and purchased freedom for his family in 1832.
Young Burleigh worked many jobs… streetlamp lighter, newspaper hawker, printer’s devil, and stewarding aboard steamboats on Lake Erie… before securing a scholarship to attend New York City’s National Conservatory of Music.
The story goes that Burleigh was working his way though school doing odd jobs around the building when the Director… the world-famous Czech composer Antonin Dvorak… heard Henry’s impressive baritone voice singing spirituals in the hallway. Burleigh said: "I sang our songs for him very often, and before he wrote his own themes, he filled himself with the spirit of the old Spirituals." Dvorak in turn said: "In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.”
After Conservatory, Burleigh became a noted concert soloist of art songs and opera arias and, of course, African-American folk songs, even singing for King Edward VII in London.
In 1894, he became a soloist for St. George's Episcopal Church in New York City. His appointment found some opposition at the then all-white church, and the trustee’s vote was close with, of all people, financier J.P. Morgan casting the deciding vote. But the parish soon came to love their first-rate singer, whose career at the church lasted 52 years until his retirement.
As a composer and arranger Burleigh published between two and three hundred original works, and his famous settings of spirituals, including “Deep River” and “Go Down Moses,” were instrumental in popularizing the genre.
Burleigh was also a founding and board member of ASCAP and was the 1917 recipient of the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for outstanding achievement by an African American.
Henry Thacker Burleigh… classically black.
