Editing Music of the United States (section)

===Blues and spirituals===
{{Main|Blues|spiritual (music)}}
{{Listen
|filename=Bertha Houston - We are Americans, Praise the Lord.ogg
|title="We are Americans"
|description=Ethnographic recordings collected for the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song. Performed by Bertha Houston.}}
Spirituals were primarily expressions of religious faith, sung by slaves on southern plantations.<ref>Garofalo, p. 19.</ref> In the mid to late 19th century, spirituals spread out of the U.S. South. In 1871 [[Fisk University]] became home to the [[Fisk Jubilee Singers]], a pioneering group that popularized spirituals across the country. In imitation of this group, gospel quartets arose, followed by increasing diversification with the early 20th-century rise of jackleg and singing preachers, from whence came the popular style of [[gospel music]].
{{Listen
|filename=Colored quartet.pharoah's army got drowned EDIS-SRP-0198-12.ogg
|title="Pharaoh's Army Got Drowned"
|description=Recorded by [[Thomas Edison]] in 1921, released in 1924.}}

Blues is a combination of African work songs, field hollers, and shouts.<ref>Garofalo, p. 44.</ref> It developed in the rural South in the first decade of the 20th century. The most important characteristics of the blues is its use of the [[Pentatonic scale|blue scale]], with a flatted or indeterminate third, as well as the typically lamenting lyrics; though both of these elements had existed in African American folk music prior to the 20th century, the codified form of modern blues (such as with the AAB structure) did not exist until the early 20th century.<ref name="Rolling">''Rolling Stone'', p. 20.</ref>