Gospel Music Research Articles

Decolonizing Western Conducting: Gospel Music Conducting Practices in Twenty-First Century Southern Nigeria

At the initial stages when Western conducting was introduced to Nigeria, it was mainly used to direct European art music. This was the practice from the nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. However, in twenty-first century, Western conducting is utilized to direct gospel ensembles, especially in Southern Nigeria. Although some of the nuances used to conduct gospel music in the locale predate twenty-first century Nigeria, literature is scant on how gospel music is conducted; and how such practice decolonizes Western conducting in Southern Nigeria. In this paper, I purposively selected eighteen (18) gospel music conductors, utilized non-participant observation, interview; and the theories of decolonization and conducting dynamism to descriptively discuss gospel music conducting practices and how the conducting practices are decolonizing Western conducting in twenty-first-century Southern Nigeria. Findings indicate that gospel music conducting in the region rarely engages basic conducting beat patterns, lavishly utilizes audible counting and finger snapping, feet stamping, clapping; and dance/kinetics that are traceable to popular music traditions to remove the restraints of conducting classicism, and to elicit kinetics in tandem with gospel music performance tradition in Southern Nigeria. These decolonize Western conducting, produce a form of conducting that combines Western and popular music idioms; that is predominantly opposed to the restrains of classical conducting. These warrant canonization for conducting taxonomy and education in Nigeria and beyond.

Gospel Music as an Intervention for Peace and Social Change in South Africa

Gospel music has played a significant role in promoting peace and worldwide social change throughout history. Apart from the spiritual aspect of gospel music, as a genre, it is deeply rooted in a biblical message of hope, restoration, and reconciliation. In Africa, numerous gospel musicians wrote and performed songs that highlighted the injustices of apartheid and advocated for freedom and equality. The lyrics of these songs often used biblical themes and metaphors to convey messages of liberation. For instance, gospel music was used in South Africa to encourage resistance and promote unity among oppressed communities during the anti-apartheid movement. One of the famous examples of the use of gospel music for social change in South Africa is the song ‘Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika’, which became an official anthem in 1994. This song is still perceived as a symbol of resistance and hope for South Africans. Gospel music in South Africa is essential as the country faces ongoing issues such as xenophobia, corruption, gender-based violence, etc. This article discusses the importance of gospel music as a remedy for peace and social change in South Africa. Using content analysis within qualitative research paradigms, the findings of this article reveal that gospel music plays a crucial role in combating xenophobia, promoting acceptance and understanding among diverse communities. The findings demonstrate that gospel music inspires and unites people from different ethnicities and creates a more inclusive and peaceful nation. This article affirms that the selected gospel songs help foster community and solidarity among diverse groups.

Social Media Platforms and their contributions to Gbenjo's Alujo Gospel Music in Nigeria

Social Media Platforms and their contributions to Gbenjo's Alujo Gospel Music in Nigeria

‘Machanic Manyeruke: The Life of Zimbabwe’s Gospel Music Legend’, written by Ault, James

‘Machanic Manyeruke: The Life of Zimbabwe’s Gospel Music Legend’, written by Ault, James

가스펠 음악이 엘비스 프레슬리(Elvis Presley)의 음악에 끼친 영향과 의미

Elvis Presley’s Grammy Awards, all three of which were won in the Gospel category, highlight a lesser-known facet of his musical legacy. His unwavering commitment to gospel music led to his posthumous induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. This study explores the impact of gospel music on Presley’s musical career and the significance it held for him. Presley grew up in the Southern United States, where gospel music culture was not significantly differentiated from secular music, allowing for a seamless integration of various gospel music styles. Even after achieving rock and roll stardom, he continued releasing gospel records and incorporated gospel songs in movies and various other shows. He used gospel music as a key element in shaping his musical style, structuring his backup vocals around gospel quartets throughout his career. By infusing traditional gospel music with contemporary sounds, he crafted his own musical identity, presenting it with unwavering confidence to the general public and the music industry. Gospel music was indeed an integral part of his artistic persona. He introduced gospel music to the world of rock and roll, reserving a prominent place for it on his stage. This approach underscored the significance of gospel music in the broader music scene. Elvis Presley’s gospel music can be re-evaluated as having emerged as a pioneering force during the formative phase of contemporary Christian music.

The Gospel According to LeRoi Jones: Gospel Music as Passing Reference in Blues People

The Gospel According to LeRoi Jones: Gospel Music as Passing Reference in Blues People

The Power of Gospel in the Black Arts Movement: A Conversation with Claudrena N. Harold

ABSTRACT This interview focuses on gospel music, which is a foundational element of soul music. Combining insights, at times, from her family background, but mostly from research in her book When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip Hop Eras (2020), which borrows its title from Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers hit recording “When Sunday Comes” (1995), Claudrena N. Harold offers an historian’s perspective on gospel music in the late 1960s. Harold discusses gospel artists who appear in Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s film Summer of Soul, contextualizes gospel artists in Questlove’s film within the history of gospel music itself, and draws connections between sacred and secular forms of Black music, that is, gospel, soul, and funk. Of particular significance, Harold argues that gospel music was part of the Black Arts Movement. Harold therefore offers a unique perspective on gospel, Summer of Soul, and the Black Arts Movement.

Seeger Lecture, Society for Ethnomusicology Virtual Meeting 2021

Seeger Lecture, Society for Ethnomusicology Virtual Meeting 2021

Gospel Music and Liturgical Hymns to the Researcher’s Spiritual Healing during the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Autoethnography Biblical Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges for Christian believers worldwide, especially in developing countries like South Africa. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed COVID-19 as a pandemic. Many activities were suspended, including church gatherings. As a result, like many Christian believers, during the pandemic, the researcher was spiritually and emotionally affected and suddenly filled with fear, depression, panic, loss, and loneliness. During the peak of the pandemic, the researcher used gospel music and liturgical hymns to uplift the researcher’s spiritual well-being. Although gospel music and liturgy hymn music have been used as devotional and spiritual music for the well-being of religious individuals, little academic attention has been given to gospel music and liturgy hymns. Hence, this article aims to provide important insights concerning the researcher’s personal experience in using gospel music and liturgical hymns during the pandemic. In this article, autoethnography was used as a research methodology. This article extends the literature about the researcher‘s experience of using gospel music and liturgical hymns as devotional and spiritual music for well-being. The article presents significant awareness and insights into gospel music and liturgical hymns during the pandemic. The findings of this article are outlined under the following three themes: Feeling vulnerable during the pandemic; (b) the role of gospel music in liturgical hymns during the pandemic; and (c) the use of gospel music and liturgical hymns for healing during the pandemic. The article affirms that gospel music and liturgical hymns can improve psychological and spiritual well-being. This can be attributed to the role of gospel music and liturgical hymns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Keywords: Autoethnography, COVID-19, Christian Believers, Gospel, Liturgy Hymns

“Singing in Tongues” as Esotericism and Postmodern Christianity. A Study of Contemporary Nigerian Gospel Music

The Nigerian gospel music industry has over the years witnessed the emergence of many artistic, cultural and philosophical movements. One of these movements is the “singing-in-tongues” paradigm, particularly endorsed by the new generation of Pentecostal hip-hop musicians, many of whom seem bent on redefining the boundaries of Nigerian gospel music. Although remarkable, the singing-in-tongues paradigm (as deployed by Nigerian artistes) has remained understudied or virtually non-theorized by scholars. This paper seeks to fill this apparent gap in knowledge by exploring the singing-in-tongues concept in the light of two philosophical/religious currents, namely esotericism and postmodernism. What has been the place of the singing-in-tongues paradigm in the evolution of the Nigerian gospel music industry? How is singing in tongues esoteric? And how is it a subtle reflection of postmodern Christianity in Nigeria?

Music and Spirituality in Africa: Gospel Music, Spirituality, and Everyday Meaning-Making in Nigeria

This article explores gospel music as one of the ways people negotiate spirituality and everyday meaning-making in Lagos. Beyond sonic spheres and analysis, this article provides insight into ways in which people ‘perform’ spirituality and negotiate wellbeing amidst Nigeria’s social, political, and economic uncertainty through a focus on the ‘celebrity’ character and self-fashioning of one of Nigeria’s gospel music stars, Tope Alabi. Gospel music and its infrastructures of modernity constitute one of the ways Nigerians negotiate wellbeing and respond to global economic tensions ‘from below’. We explore the nexus between gospel music and how the ‘spirituality’ it facilitates shapes people’s subjective ideas of social and economic wellbeing. We ask: what is the link between gospel music, spirituality, and people’s everyday meaning-making and self-making? Using Harry Garuba’s animist unconscious’, we explore ways in which the social life and superstar image of Nigerian ‘celebrity’ gospel musicians constitute sites where people negotiate spirituality and everyday subjective happiness, and social and economic wellbeing. We argue that spirituality, ‘being spiritual’ or the understanding thereof does not only manifest at the intersections of sound and emotion. Instead, we suggest that people’s subjective idea of spirituality or ‘being spiritual’ in a place such as Lagos can also be understood through a focus on the social life and the self-fashioning of gospel musicians. The self-fashioning and superstar image of gospel musicians become a medium through which the everyday idea of spirituality and meaning-making is negotiated, staged, and performed, and a channel through which these processes of meaning-making can be explored and understood.

From the Islands to the Motherland: Motivic Traveling in Contemporary Gospel Music

Contemporary gospel musicians frequently use ad libs that describe diasporic desires, imagined identities, and the music itself. “To the islands” and “to the motherland” are directives that call audiences to join musicians in a motivic journey that spans the Black Atlantic, and flows between North America, the Caribbean, and Africa. Though deployed throughout the genre’s history, I focus here on the motivic traveling featured in gospel music released within the past two decades. I posit that musicians engage in this symbolism for three possible reasons: to enliven gospel music, to appeal to increasingly diverse congregations both within the U.S. and abroad, and to participate in an ongoing musical conversation among members of the African Diaspora.

Three Black Gospel Music Experts on Preparing, Teaching, and “Being” in the African American Aural-Oral Tradition

Abstract The purpose of this multiple case study was to gather musical and nonmusical perspectives from three experts on teaching Black gospel music in the African American aural-oral tradition. Research questions included: (a) What is the process Black gospel music experts engage in when preparing for and teaching gospel music in the aural-oral tradition? (b) In the view of Black gospel music experts, how does race intersect with the preparation, teaching, and performance of gospel music? (c) How do Black gospel music experts advocate for incorporating gospel music into public school vocal music programs? Participants were purposively selected, and data collection included observations, researcher-singer participation, and multiple interviews. Expert agreement emerged regarding teaching processes as a nonmusical “state of being” deeply infused with cultural, community, and spiritual values. Rehearsals were uninterrupted musical experiences with limited nonverbal instruction made possible from robust aural-oral immersion preparation. While participants insisted race was not a prerequisite for engagement in gospel music, they agreed the influence and mediation of race plays an active role, citing the proliferation of anti-Blackness in the academy as foremost among the barriers to rigorous preparation to teach Black gospel music. Experts advocated for teaching gospel music in schools to offer students the opportunity to participate in the accessible, inclusive, participatory, and communal experience available in gospel music.

Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field by Mark Burford

Reviewed by: Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field by Mark Burford Jesse P. Karlsberg Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field. By Mark Burford. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. [xv, 472 p. ISBN 9780190634902 (hardcover), $67; ISBN 9780190095529 (paperback), $36.95; ISBN 9780190634926 (ebook), price varies.] Illustrations, tables, bibliography, index. Mark Burford's excellent book Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field is much more than a biography of Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972) and the first book on the Black gospel luminary in twenty-five years. The book also draws on Jackson's life and work to characterize the dynamics of Black gospel in the postwar United States. In situating the progression of Jackson's career in gospel and popular contexts, Burford's analysis prompts a newly dynamic understanding of prestige in the field and its intersection with race, religion, gender, genre, and politics, opening up new possibilities for the study of gospel music and popular culture. Burford's treatment is also richly interdisciplinary, deploying sociological and critical theoretical frames, historical research methods, and music analysis. On the singer herself, Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field is rich in biographical detail, drawing on an unprecedented array of archival sources. Burford charts Jackson's family history, the singer's youth in Louisiana, her move to Chicago, her navigation of institutions in Black Baptist and Chicago gospel circles as she rose to acclaim as the "Queen of Gospel Music," her recordings for the independent Apollo Records label, her dynamic live performances on Black gospel and mass cultural circuits, and the national fame that accompanied this and her CBS radio and television programs and work with Columbia Recording Corporation. Burford unearths new evidence on dates associated with key events in Jackson's early life—such as her birth in Louisiana and move to Chicago—and traces the implications of these findings on stories of her entwinement with the rise of gospel music in Chicago in the 1930s. Throughout, Burford represents Jackson and those in her orbit as agents in their own stories who engaged in nuanced self-reflection around questions of class, race, place, and religion, and who interrogated their own positions in the Black gospel field. Burford's biographical coverage extends beyond Jackson herself to include others in her circle. He paints vivid pictures of several "omnipresent and shadowy figure[s]" (p. 147) in Jackson's life, including (among a range of composers, record producers, ministers, and others) diarist and jack-of-all-trades Bill Russell, composer Thomas Dorsey, promoter Johnny Myers, record producer Bess Berman, and long-time accompanist Mildred Falls. Burford pairs this biographical account with careful and attentive music analysis to develop helpful characterizations of postwar Black gospel styles in Jackson's music with broader applicability. Burford connects his own informed listening and viewing to historical and contemporaneous contexts within and beyond gospel, including genres such as pop, jazz, and light classical. Burford's adroit music analysis of Jackson's gospel performances represents an important and still radical example in the discipline of musicology, where such methods are still most commonly associated with Western art music. Burford offers a helpful disambiguation of Black gospel song types, enumerating four categories in discussing Jackson's Apollo recordings: religious popular music and three feels—"a 'swing' feel, a 'gospel' feel, and a 'free' feel reserved primarily for hymns," each "established by determinable factors that include tempo, metrical organization, rhythmic impulse, expressive strategies, vocal approach, and even repertory" (p. 174) [End Page 544] . Here and elsewhere in the book, Burford precisely and effectively describes Jackson's music making, conveying challenging musical concepts such as expressivity and feel, as in his description of a "sudden and dramatic but completely controlled eruption" that "rockets a major seventh upward . . . overshooting the blue third—and drifts melismatically back down to the lower tonic" (p. 337). Burford also demonstrates why these music-analytical characterizations matter, charting Jackson's "ambivalent" navigation of the "class politics of voice" (p. 385) through her performance style. Burford's embrace of the theoretical concept of the "field," drawing on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, helps him connect Jackson's mobility and music making to Black gospel during the postwar...

Alisha Lola Jones, Flaming? The Peculiar Theopolitics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance

American Religion 2, no. 2 (Spring 2021), pp. 145–147 Copyright © 2021, The Trustees of Indiana University • doi: 10.2979/amerreli.2.2.11 Book Review Alisha Lola Jones, Flaming? The Peculiar Theopolitics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) Vaughn A. Booker Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA Flaming? The Peculiar Theopolitics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance is Alisha Lola Jones’s consequential analysis of Black religious and spiritual men who represent alternative modes of religious affiliation and belonging that are, nevertheless, essential to and rooted in the vitality of their Christian contexts. Her subjects and interlocutors include “delivered” or ex-gay Black men whose pleasure comes with embodied musicianship; Black men who present as hypermasculine; Black men who are down-low or practice sexual discretion; Black men who are celibate and practicing tantra/self-pleasure; and Black men who are hetero-monogamous but into anal pleasure/exploration with their partners . Through their queer identities and sexual practices as Christians, these religious men fall under what historian Wallace Best labels “the voices of the nonreligious, quasi-religious, differently religious, doubtful, disillusioned, and unsure,” mainly signifying as the “differently religious” in their cisheteropatriarchal and hypermasculine Black religious contexts.1 1 Wallace D. Best, Langston’s Salvation: American Religion and the Bard of Harlem (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 22. American Religion 2:2 146 With Flaming?, Jones examines “the rituals and social interactions of African American unmarried or unpartnered men who use gospel music-making as a means of worshiping God and performing gendered identities in and beyond Christian contexts.” As Jones argues, “these men wield and interweave a variety of multivalent sonic and visual cues, including vocal style, gesture, attire, and homiletics, to position themselves along a spectrum of gender identities. These multisensory enactments empower artists (i.e., ‘peculiar people’) to demonstrate modes of ‘competence’ that affirm their fitness to minister through speech and song” (9). Collectively, it is these men who may create (un)intentionally “a heteronormative manhood in Pentecostal worship” (201). Oftentimes their displays of “church realness” reflect roots and/or experiences in queer dance hall culture. Jones’s work to center these men reveals the ways that Black religious and spiritual practices transcend spaces as queer Black religious subjects move between them. A sacred/secular binary continues to break down with scholarship revealing that the practices of spiritual subject formation linger, wade, and cruise between inviting yet seemingly divergent locales. There is a diversity of (signaled or coded) sexualities and gender presentations in the Black Pentecostal and Baptist spaces that Jones depicts, which may not register so visibly in the textual archives of church records, preachers’ papers, sermon collections, denominational publications, or convention minutes that normally capture theological reflection and interpersonal communication. With this diversity comes a culture of discrete communication practices among Black religious men, which happen in live and produced music for queer listeners to consume, interpret, infer about, and feel seen or affirmed by. Discrete communication between Black religious subjects is also manifest in casual, samegender -loving (SGL) hookup culture, which does not pause while queer Black religious subjects attend, with their entire selves, denominational conventions, and conventions such as the Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA). In line with the history of charismatic revivalism and sexuality in America, the modern use of sexual hookup apps allows people who believe they may have made a spiritual connection with someone to commence an erotic connection, or simply a casual encounter. Here, Jones offers a novel approach to understanding sacred spaces. They contain not only the unseen, sanctifying Holy Spirit moving among the faithful; these sacred spaces are latent with the invisible, digital background data of active sexual desire and communication. Black Pentecostal and Baptist men’s strategies of cultural performance through orality—song, speech, and the vocal utterances that fall in between—as well as bodily movement or composure, demonstrate how the very act of engendering “authentic” religious ritual requires that they manage, deflect, or assuage the anxiety and scrutiny of religious audiences. With these chosen strategies, Vaughn A. Booker 147 queer Black Pentecostal musicians work to assure audiences of their spiritual...

Música gospel na Igreja Verbo da Vida: produção, consumo e a corporalidade dos “ministros de louvor”

Neste artigo, abordamos aspectos do movimento gospel, situando a Igreja Verbo da Vida como campo empírico em que observamos suas dinâmicas, bem como analisamos a atuação dos “ministros de louvor” da referida igreja, discutindo aspectos relativos à sua corporalidade. Dentre os aspectos focalizados nesse estudo, destacamos a emergência de um subcampo de produção e circulação da música gospel e a ampliação do consumo da música na esfera religiosa, na qual o estilo musical se constrói como um tipo de entretenimento religioso. Também focamos as dinâmicas corporais nos momentos de “louvor e adoração”. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida utilizando a observação direta nos cultos e eventos, bem como realizando entrevistas não estruturadas e semiestruturada.

Reseña: Ward, Mark. (2017). The Lord's Radio, Gospel Music Broadcasting and the Making of Evangelical Culture, 1920-1960. Jefferson: McFraland and Company, Inc., Publishers

Resena de libro Ward, Mark. (2017). The Lord's Radio, Gospel Music Broadcasting and the Making of Evangelical Culture, 1920-1960. Jefferson: McFraland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

Anthony Johnson Showalter: A Pioneer in Southern Gospel Music Education

Anthony Johnson Showalter (c. 1853–1924) was a music educator, gospel composer, publisher, and considered a pioneer in gospel music and education in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Showalter is notably mentioned in numerous texts and studies related to gospel music; however, little data has been collected regarding the tools he used in singing schools—namely, the rudiment books he wrote and the schools where he used the curriculum. The purpose of this study is to discover Showalter’s possible motivation to begin his career, his determination in writing music education curriculum, organizing singing schools, his reasonings for focusing on seven-shape note style, and his influence into the twenty-first century. Materials analyzed included Showalter’s rudiment books, extant copies of his periodical, “The Music Teacher and Home Magazine,” and interviews at present-day gospel singing schools. Extant research related to four-shape and seven-shape hymnody and education was also reviewed. Findings indicate that Showalter was a progressive student-centered educator who utilized alternate tools in helping many with literacy by organizing the Southern Normal Musical Institute. Showalter created materials and opportunities which were accessible to the advanced and the beginner, hence providing a future for gospel singing schools well into the twenty-first century.

Music in Christian Tradition: Example of Gospel Music, Blues and Jazz in American Christian Music

Müzik, hemen tüm dinler için vazgeçilmez bir özellik olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Hıristiyanlık, müziğe ayinlerde ve sosyal yaşamda en çok yer veren dini geleneklerden biri olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Hıristiyan mezhepleri arasında müziği kullanma noktasında birbirinden farklı uygulamalar görülmektedir. Amerikan Hıristiyanlığı, 18 ve 19. yy. lardan itibaren yaşadığı dini uyanış tecrübesinde, müziğe özel önem vermiştir. Baptist, Metodist, Luteriyen ve Pentakostal geleneğe bağlı kiliseler, Hıristiyan müziğinin dönüşümünde ve yaygınlaşmasında rol almıştır. Bu süreç yeni tarz ilahiler ve daha sonrasında Gospel Müziği olarak kendini göstermiştir. Bu iki türün ve yerel bazı kültürel etkenlerin de devreye girmesi ile tarz olarak seküler ancak sözleri itibariyle dini içeriğe sahip olabilen müzik türleri ortaya çıkmıştır. Bluz ve Caz bu türler arasında en öne çıkan ve uluslararası boyuta ulaşan iki önemli örnek olarak değerlendirilmektedir.

Gospel Minstrelsy

American Religion 1, no. 1 (Fall 2019), pp. 137–149 Copyright © 2019, The Trustees of Indiana University • doi: 10.2979/amerreli.1.1.08 Review Essay GOSPEL MINSTRELSY on Bob Dylan, Trouble No More: 1979–1981 The Bootleg Series, volume 13 Columbia Records (2017) Kathryn Lofton Yale University, New Haven, USA You have to begin by capturing in words something that is only partly about words. It isn’t not about words. It is just that words are the wrong way at it. Gospel is the sound of spirit. A particular kind of song and lyric, yes. Mainly, though, a spirit you use sound to achieve. Braxton Shelley says, “gospel music is a means by which to make one’s way through the world.” In his language, gospel is a sonic phenomenon that deploys a combination of repetition and intensification “to organize both sound and perception in pursuit of transcendence.”1 I am now going to write about something that we should hear to know.2 1 Braxton D. Shelley, “Analyzing Gospel,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 72, no. 1 (2019), 196, 239. My work about Bob Dylan in music history is inspired and informed by the scholarly and pedagogical contributions of Daphne Brooks and Gayle Wald. 2 Listening to gospel music while reading or writing about gospel music helps correct for some of this sensory hermeneutic confusion. If you would like a soundtrack to your reading, consider pulling up The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979–1981. On streaming services, you find the standard two-disc edition. From that double album I American Religion 1:1 138 Of course: we talk a lot about gospel. We talk about its formal chronological beginnings (the 1930s) and the regions that intersected to forge its emergence (i.e., “Gospel music is the twentieth-century form of African American religious music that evolved in urban cites following the Great Migration of Blacks from the agrarian South in the period surrounding World Wars I and II”).3 We talk about its predecessor and contributing genres (spirituals, blues, jubilee, and camp-meeting songs); we talk about its founding father (Thomas A. Dorsey, 1899–1993) and his signature song (“Precious Lord”).4 We talk about its defining attributes (the call and response format, ample room for improvisation, rhythm, and frequent use of the flatted seventh and third in melodies).5 We try to write out how we got from there to here, from Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972) to Yolanda Adams (1961-), James David Vaughan (1864–1941) to Kirk Franklin (1970-), Rosetta Tharpe (1915–1973) to Valerie June (1982-). We try to say what is so special about this sound alongside other sounds, and why this sound could make communities stand up, and feel together. Whatever our studies of gospel music address, they invariably try to name this feeling of gospel sound. Where does that feeling derive, and what does that feeling do? Gospel songs “are emotionally inspired—by visions, trouble, sorrow, thanksgiving, and joy,” notes George Ricks.6 Gospel songs are trying to—in the words of Thomas Dorsey—“help somebody else” through an upbeat retelling of the “good news.”7 Throughout the history of Christianity, the concept of gospel was connected to an idea of a singular life story that needed to be told to others so they could know something they might not about the recommend tracks 5 and 12 from the first disc, and 6 and 16 from the second. The eleventh installment in the Columbia bootleg series of Dylan’s recordings, Trouble No More is available in three versions: a two-disc set common to the rest of the series after the first three volumes; a four-LP album version of the standard set; and a nine-disc deluxe version including a DVD. 3 Mellonee V. Burnim, “Gospel,” African American Music: An Introduction, 2nd ed., ed. Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby (New York: Routledge, 2015), 189. 4 Burnim, “Gospel,” 171. 5 Robert Darden, People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music (New York: Continuum, 2004), 183. 6 George Robinson Ricks, Some Aspects of Religious Music of the United States Negro: An Ethnomusicological Study with Special...