author
Known only by a generic credit, this early recording act survives in the historical record through a single spiritual preserved by Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive. The mystery around the name makes the piece feel even more like a rare echo from the early days of recorded music.
by "Colored Quartet" (name unknown)
Very little can be confirmed about the performer credited as "Colored Quartet" (name unknown). Project Gutenberg lists the act under that exact unknown-name credit, and associates it with Pharoah's Army Got Drownded, while the Internet Archive identifies the recording as an Edison Diamond Disc of the spiritual Pharoah's army got drowned from 1924.
Because no reliable source found here gives the singers' actual names, background, or a fuller career history, the safest way to understand this entry is as an anonymous vocal quartet preserved through one historic recording. That anonymity is part of what makes the piece striking today: it represents a fragment of African American performance history that was recorded, saved, and passed on, even though the artists themselves were not properly identified.
For listeners, the value of this entry is less in a documented life story than in the survival of the performance itself. It offers a small but vivid glimpse of early recorded spiritual singing and of how much cultural history can endure even when the names behind it have been lost.