Champaign-Based Record Label Earns Grammy Nomination for 5th Straight Year

Archeophone Records will be part of the Grammy Awards for the 5th straight year.

'There Breathes a Hope', the newest release from the Champaign-based label that re-issues some of the earliest known recordings, includes 43 songs performed by the Fisk Jubilee Quartet. The recordings and the accompanying 100-page booklet tell the story of John Wesley Work II, who started taking the Fisk Jubilee Singers, from Nashville-based Fisk University, on the road in the late 1890's in an effort to preserve African-American spirituals and their place in history. The ensemble became the Fisk University Jubilee Quartet in the next century. The re-issue of these songs is nominated for Best Album Notes.

Author Doug Seroff wrote the notes. "I suppose what Work had to do was convince the student body that this music was genuine African-American folk music..," said Seroff. ".. and it had all the potential and all the inherit cultural value that people's music has." The CD also includes portions of a 1983 interview Seroff conducted with Rev. Jerome Wright, one of the last surviving members of the Fisk Jubliee Singers to have performed under John Work II.

Archeophone co-owners Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey have one Grammy win - that was in 2007 - when another collection of black recordings - Lost Sounds, took the award for best historical album. Previous nominations include "Debate '08: Taft and Bryan Campaign on the Edison Phonograph" and "Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings From the 1890's." The 53rd annual Grammy Awards will be presented on February 13th.