​​Recorded from Albert Bradford and Becky Elzy, who spent their early years on Avery Island, by John and Alan Lomax during their 1934 Louisiana trip, “Dry Bones” is a spiritual related to but distinct from “Dem Bones,” the children’s song about connected bones. It draws on Ezekiel’s vision of bones restored to life, an image of Israel’s promised restoration (Ezek. 37:11–12). In African American spirituals, Israel’s suffering and deliverance often expressed hopes for freedom and redemption; the family verses may also suggest shared mortality and personal hope. The song uses familiar phrases, including the battle at Jericho, and a repeated pattern that changes the family member named. The dry bones story was popular in African American preaching. Bruce Rosenberg’s Can These Bones Live? The Art of the American Folk Preacher takes its title from a dry bones sermon. Songs like this likely developed alongside that tradition, giving musical voice to stories heard from the pulpit.

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FURTHER READING
 

McIlhenny, E. A. Befo’ de War Spirituals: Words and Melodies. Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1933.
 

Winick, Stephen. “Becky Elzy and Alberta Bradford: Spiritual Folklorists.” Folklife Today, Library of Congress, February 28, 2018.

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Maultsby, Portia K. “Black Spirituals: An Analysis of Textual Forms and Structures.” The Black Perspective in Music 4, no. 1 (Spring 1976): 54–69.

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Lovell, John, Jr. Black Song: The Forge and the Flame: The Story of How the Afro-American Spiritual Was Hammered Out. New York: Macmillan, 1972.

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Johnson, James Weldon, ed. The Book of American Negro Spirituals. Musical arrangements by J. Rosamond Johnson. New York: Viking Press, 1925. ​
 

RELEVANT DISCOGRAPHY
 

Dock Reed and Vera Hall Ward. Spirituals with Dock Reed and Vera Hall Ward. Folkways Records, 1953. 

 

Dock Reed and Vera Hall Ward. Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 5: Spirituals. Folkways Records, 1950. 

 

Various artists. Wade in the Water, Vol. 1: African-American Spirituals: The Concert Tradition. Smithsonian Folkways, 1994.

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Moving Star Hall Singers. Been in the Storm So Long: Spirituals, Folk Tales and Children’s Games from John’s Island, South Carolina. Folkways Records. 

 

Moving Star Hall Singers and Alan Lomax. Sea Island Folk Festival. Folkways Records. ​

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RELATED LINKS

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Caffery, Joshua Clegg. “Alberta Bradford and Becky Elzy.” John and Alan Lomax in Louisiana, 1934. Accessed October 20, 2026.

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“Dry Bones.” The American Folk Song Collection. Kodály Center at the University of Redlands.

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Sons of Andros. “Dry Bones.” Track 19 on The Bahamas: Islands of Song. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 1997.

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