444 Dinwiddie Colored Quartet “Down on the Old Camp Ground” 1902

The group was formed in 1898 as a means of raising funds for the Dinwiddie Normal and Industrial School for black youth. It later began performing in vaudeville and black theaters. In 1902, the group made the “first jubilee recordings ever made by Victor (Talking Machine Company)…’Down on the Old Camp Ground’ was a “performance so contemporary sounding that one modern writer has called it, ‘the first rhythm and blues vocal group record’” (Tim Brooks, Richard Spottswood, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919, 2004). 

Dinwiddie Colored Quartet “Down on the Old Camp Ground”