Reviewed by Tony Cummings

If you've never heard of the Elkins-Payne Jubilee Singers it's hardly surprising. The ensembles put together by William C Elkins changed names and personnel with startling rapidity. They were the Elkins-Payne Jubilee Singers in 1923, the Elkins Negro Ensemble (1926), W C Elkins And His Dextra Singers (1926) and by 1929 were offering a 78 billed William C Elkins Jubilee Singers With Roger Wolfe Kahn & His Orchestra. The latter with its oompah-oompah rhythmed orchestration on "Great Day" and "Without A Song" are truly ghastly tracks aimed at a white audience. So despite the primitive sound it's the earlier with just a piano accompaniment which work best though, having said that, "Little David, Play On Yo' Harp" here was dubbed from a 78 that skips! That, the aforementioned Broadway-style disaster, and the stilted soprano leads of Miss Julia Mitchell on a couple of tracks help put this compilation in the category of "for music historians only."

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