Who Is Dat Yondah?

“Who Is Dat Yondah?” is a spiritual arrangement for voice and piano by Eva Jessye. The song is the first arrangement included in Jessye’s book My Spirituals (1927). In the song’s preface, Jessye describes how she attributes this song to Aunt Lizzie Ann Buckner—an elderly woman who lived in one of the more extravagant houses in Jessye’s hometown Coffeyville. Aunt Lizzie was famed as the best laundress in town, and her two main interests were “serving God” and “helping the distressed.” Jessye writes, “I can see her now, stopping her ironing to rest awhile. She is sitting outside the kitchen door by the old well. A gingham apron is tied about her waist, her toil-worn hands are folded in her lap and a white cloth, scarcely whiter than the locks beneath, is tied about her head. In a voice that can be heard for blocks she is singing such haunting song as ‘Who Is Dat Yondah?’”