John Rosamond Johnson most often referred to as J. Rosamond Johnson, was an American composer and singer during the Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...

. Johnson is most notable as the composer of Lift Every Voice and Sing which has come to be known in the United States as the "Black National Anthem". His brother, the poet James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his leadership within the NAACP, as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and...

, wrote the lyrics of the famous piece.

Biography

Johnson was trained at the New England Conservatory

New England Conservatory of Music

The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent school of music in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of...

 and then studied in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. His career began as an interesting public school teacher in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...

. Traveling to New York, he began his show business career along with his brother and Bob Cole

Bob Cole (composer)

Robert Allen "Bob" Cole was an American composer, actor, playwright, and stage producer and director.In collaboration with Billy Johnson, he wrote and produced A Trip to Coontown , the first musical entirely created and owned by black showmen. The popular song La Hoola Boola was also a result of...

. As a songwriting team, they wrote works such as The Evolution of Ragtime (1903). Among the earliest works by the group, this was a suite of six songs of "Negro" music. They produced two successful Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

s with casts of black actors: Shoo-Fly Regiment of 1906 and The Red Moon of 1908. They also created and produced several "white" musicals: Sleeping Beauty and the Beast in 1901, In Newport in 1904, and Humpty Dumpty in 1904. Johnson would also collaborate to create Hello paris
with J. Leubrie Hill in 1911.

Johnson was active in various musical roles during his career. He toured Vaudeville and, after Cole's 1911 death, began a successful tour with Charles Hart and Tom Brown

Tom Brown (trombonist)

Tom Brown , sometimes known by the nickname Red Brown, was an early New Orleans dixieland jazz trombonist. He also played string bass professionally....

. In London, he wrote music for a theater review from 1912 to 1913 serving a long residency. After returning to the United States, New York's Music School Settlement for Colored — founded by the New York Symphony Orchestra

New York Symphony Orchestra

The New York Symphony Orchestra was founded as the New York Symphony Society in New York City by Leopold Damrosch in 1878. For many years it was a fierce rival to the older Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York. It was supported by Andrew Carnegie who built Carnegie Hall expressly for the...

's David Mannes

David Mannes

David Mannes was an American violinist, conductor, and educator.Mannes studied in Berlin with Karol Haliř and was a violinist in the New York Symphony Orchestra from 1891 and its concertmaster from 1898 to 1912. In 1912 he helped found the Colored Music Settlement School and in 1916, with his...

 — appointed him as director where he served from 1914 to 1919. With his own ensembles— The Harlem Rounders and The Inimitable Five— he toured as well, and performed in Negro spiritual concerts with Emmanuel Taylor Gordon. The London production of Lew Leslie

Lew Leslie

Lew Leslie was a Broadway writer and producer. Although white, he was the first impressario to present black artists on stage...

's Blackbirds of 1936 engaged Johnson as musical director. During the 1930s, Johnson also sang the role of Frazier in the original production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

, taking roles in other dramas as well. He reprised his role as Frazier on the 1951 studio recording of Porgy and Bess.

As an editor, he collected four important works. The first two of these song collections he compiled along with his brother James: The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925) and The Second Book of Negro Spirituals (1926). In addition, Johnson edited Shoutsongs (1936) and the folksong anthology Rolling Along in Song (1937).

Musical Works

• Shoo-Fly Regiment (1906), Broadway operetta
• The Red Moon (1908), Broadway operetta
• Sleeping Beauty and the Beast (1901), musical
• In Newport (1904), musical
• Humpty Dumpty (1904), musical
• Mr. Lode of Koal (1909), musical
• Come Over Here (1912), musical
• The Maiden with the Dreamy Eyes, song
• Didn't He Ramble, song
• Li'l Gal, song
• Since You Went Away, song
• Lift Every Voice and Sing, song

External links

• The J. Rosamond Johnson Papers at Yale University Music Library