Mississippi’s Cotton Blossom Singers!

Bailey, Ben E. “The Cotton Blossom Singers: Mississippi’s Black Troubadours,” The Black Perspective in Music 15, no. 2 (1987): 133-152.

Similar in practiceCotton Blossom Singers (1929) to Fisk University and the Jubilee Singers, this article discusses the early history of the Cotton Blossom Singers at Piney Woods Country Life School in Mississippi from about 1921 to the 1940s. Locally, the group was known as the Piney Woods Singers. Their travels, repertoire, radio programs, and their encounters with racism are discussed. A day-by-day account in one week of travel is included. (Author’s abstract, slightly revised)