“Deep River” is an anonymous African-American spiritual, popularized by Henry Burleigh in his 1916 collection Jubilee Songs of the USA. The song was first mentioned in print in 1876, when it was published in the first edition of The Story of the Jubilee Singers: With Their Songs, by J. B. T. Marsh (page 230). By 1917, when Harry Burleigh completed the last of his several influential arrangements, the song had become very popular in recitals. It has been called “perhaps the best known and best-loved spiritual”