Deep River (song)

"Deep River" is an anonymous African-American spiritual, popularized by Henry Burleigh in his 1916 collection Jubilee Songs of the USA.

[2] The melody was adopted in 1921 for the song Dear Old Southland by Henry Creamer and Turner Layton, which enjoyed popular success the next year in versions by Paul Whiteman and by Vernon Dalhart.

Daniel Gregory Mason quotes the melody in his String Quartet on Negro Themes Op.

The 1929 film Show Boat featured it mouthed by Laura La Plante to the singing of Eva Olivetti.

[6] "Deep River" is also one of five spirituals written into the 1941 oratorio A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett.