Spirituals & Gospel Chords
Spirituals and early gospel songs that shaped American music. Open any song for its chords over lyrics, fretboard diagrams, key, tempo, and researched source attribution. All public-domain — sing them, play them, and share them freely.
Most of these melodies need just three or four chords — Amazing Grace is three chords in 3/4 time.
Spirituals & gospel songs with chords
Sacred songs, sung back and forth
Spirituals are sacred songs created by African Americans in slavery and handed on by ear; the first published collection, Slave Songs of the United States, appeared in 1867. They were sung in call and response, a leader answered by a chorus, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers, established in 1871, popularized them on tours of the United States and Europe. Michael Row the Boat Ashore was first noted on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, during the Civil War, and is in that 1867 book. Wade in the Water was first published in 1901, in the collection New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Amazing Grace is a hymn rather than a spiritual: John Newton's words first appeared in print in 1779.
The call-and-response form tells a guitarist what to do: let a chord ring under the leader's line, then strum fuller where the group answers. Amazing Grace and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot are both built on G, C and D7. Michael Row the Boat Ashore uses C, F, Am and G7, and Go Tell It on the Mountain adds Dm to those. Wade in the Water is in A minor, over Am, Dm and E7. The earliest recordings of When the Saints Go Marching In, from 1923, were slow and stately, and later ones grew more rhythmic, so try it slowly before you let it swing.
Why these songs are free to play
Every entry is strictly public-domain or traditional, source-attributed, and charted as chords — so you can learn, play, and share without any copyright worry.