Harry Burleigh was born in Erie, PA in 1866. His mother was the daughter of a slave who was discarded by his owners when he became blind.
His grandfather often sang spirituals to Harry as they walked the streets of Erie.
After high school, Harry became established as a singer in the Episcopal Church choir in Erie. While singing there, he learned of a scholarship at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. With the help of donations from many Erie music lovers he was able to accept this scholarship and undertake a serious study of music.
One of his teachers at the Conservatory was Anton Dvorak, for whom Burleigh played and sang many of the spirituals that he had learned from his grandfather. One of these was Swing Low Sweet Chariot, which Dvorak used in the first movement of his New World Symphony.
While still in school in 1894, he auditioned and was accepted as a baritone in the choir of St. George Episcopal Church in New York City where he sang for 52 years. In 1900 he also joined the Temple Emanu-El choir, where he sang for 25 years.
In the early 1900s he began some casual efforts at composition, which he regarded only as mental exercises, until friends convinced him to publish Deep River in 1917. Soon afterward he published the secular song Little Mother of Mine, which was sung throughout the world by John McCormack. These two songs established Harry's reputation as a composer.
Harry was a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and he received honorary degrees from Atlanta University and Howard University. He also coached many famous singers including Enrico Caruso, Marian Anderson, and Paul Robeson.
Harry retired from the St. George choir in 1946, and died in Stamford, Connecticut in 1949.
The list of spirituals for which Harry wrote accompaniments is long.
Some of the more familiar ones include Ain't Gonna Study War No More, Balm in Gilead, De Gospel Train, Deep River, Give Me Jesus, Go Down Moses, Go Tell It on de Mountains, My Lord What a Mornin', Nobody Knows de Trouble I've Seen, Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child, Steal Away, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and Were You There. If you hear one of these sung today, there is a good chance that Harry Burleigh wrote the accompaniment, and you can take some pride in the knowledge that the composer was an Erie native whose career got its start in this city.

Adapted from a biographical sketch in The Spirituals of Harry T. Burleigh, 1984, Belwin Mills, Miami

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