Gospel Songs Research Articles

American Black Spiritual and Gospel Songs from Southeast Georgia: A Comparative Study

American Black Spiritual and Gospel Songs from Southeast Georgia: A Comparative Study

Gospel Music Research

Students of gospel music are in agreement that it was during the decade of the 1920's that the tradition of gospel music started its steady climb to respectability and widespread popularity among black people in the United States. In the year 1921, Thomas Dorsey wrote his first gospel song; hardly ten years later, in 1930, Dorsey had completely renounced his career as an accomplished blues and jazz pianist-composer and devoted himself entirely to the development and advancement of gospel music (Duckett, 1974, p. 13; Boyer, 1974, p. 21). There is no single source to which one can refer to learn of the early history of gospel music, whose foundation was actually laid prior to Dorsey in the storefront churches of the North and South during the first two decades of this century. The most informative overview of this period is written by a musician but by historian Lawrence Levine. Though only one small section of Levine's Black Culture and Black Consciousness (1977) is devoted to the gospel music tradition, this contribution is particularly valuable as an attempt to present and understand the thought of the people who, though quite articulate in their own lifetimes, have been rendered historically inarticulate by scholars who have devoted their attention to other groups and problems ( p. ix). Because Levine recognizes the carriers of black culture not as objects who were continually acted upon by forces over which they had no control, but rather as actors in their own right who only responded to their situation but often affected it in crucial ways, (p. xi), his work provides a very solid framework for the development of an understanding of gospel music from a black perspective. For example, Levine brings together the writings of poet-author Langston Hughes, blues singer T-Bone Walker, jazz bassist Pops Foster, and folklorist Zora Neal Hurston to affirm the pre-Dorsey roots of gospel music and to point out the superficiality of common distinctions between black sacred and secular music. He quotes Langston Hughes' observations of a service in a Holiness church in Chicago around the time of World War I: I was entranced by their stepped-up rhythms, tambourines, hand clapping, and uninhibited dynamics, rivaled only by Ma Rainey singing the blues at the old Monogram Theater ... The music of these less formal Negro churches early took hold of me, moved and thrilled me (Levine, 1977, p. 180). This comment by Hughes, and the

Gospel Songs in Court: From Rural Music to Urban Industry in the 1950s

The Journal of Popular CultureVolume 11, Issue 3 p. 551-567 Gospel Songs in Court: From Rural Music to Urban Industry in the 1950s David Crawford, David Crawford David Crawford (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is Professor of Musicology at the University of Michigan. He teaches a variety of music history courses, and most of his publications deal with Renaissance sacred music of Italy and Spain.Search for more papers by this author David Crawford, David Crawford David Crawford (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is Professor of Musicology at the University of Michigan. He teaches a variety of music history courses, and most of his publications deal with Renaissance sacred music of Italy and Spain.Search for more papers by this author First published: Winter 1977 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1977.00551.xCitations: 3AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume11, Issue3Winter 1977Pages 551-567 RelatedInformation

The Responsorial and Antiphonal Practice in Gospel Song

he gospel song and its stylistic peculiarities found its origin and development in the United States. Though a certain sentimentality and subjectivism in text, together with certain musical characteristics common to gospel songs, appeared in the tune books of Lowell Mason, Thomas Hastings, William Batchelder Bradbury, and others during the first half of the nineteenth century (Ellinwood 1953:105), the great upsurge of gospel songs did not begin until after 1870 and might conveniently be dated from the English tour of Dwight Lyman Moody and Ira David Sankey in 1873 (McCutchan 1937:277-78). R. G. McCutchan writes of the gospel songs:

Revivalism, the Gospel Songs and Social Reform

n recent months there have been notable attempts to define and to establish it as a separate discipline. In a sense, this paper is presented with the same objective in mind. It is my belief that the subject will be defined and delineated by the nature of the studies which are made by its proponents in the early years of this society rather than by the resolution of certain polemics which have resulted from our discussions. In like manner, the claim of the ethnomusicologists to a separate existence will rest more upon the universality of our precepts than upon a predetermined restriction to particular areas, methodology, or values. My purpose, therefore, is to encourage the members of this society to extend their studies into the musics of those strata of Western society which have not been objectively documented and thereby to demonstrate the efficacy of ethnomusicology in areas often neglected by traditional musicologists. In the area of American music, the researcher is frequently confronted with harmonic and melodic elements of Western music employed in a context that subordinates musical values--as defined by traditional musicologists--to their function in a society. As has been pointed out by members of this organization, research in these neglected areas is the province of the ethnomusicologist, whose perspective allows him the freedom to seek out relationships other than those inherent in the music itself. As an illustration of a study in such an area, I have chosen the music of Protestant revivalism of the late nineteenth centurythe gospel songs--to show how a practice on the periphery of Western musical development may acquire significance only as it is related to the religious and social mores of a nation. We are fortunate that much of the music from this period of revivalism exists today in printed form as well as in actual practice among various evangelical groups. We are not to assume, however, that the taxonomic stages of this study may be by-passed; on the contrary, the separation of the songs from their original function in the revival service by those who wished to exploit them commercially, and the acculturation which occurred when the music was used by ethnic groups other than Anglo-Saxon Protestants, offer numerous opportunities for the field worker. For the purpose of this paper, discussion will be limited to the music used in revival services by Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and their followers between 1875 and 1930. I do not propose to present a description of these songs based on a musical analysis or performance practice except as these elements are related to our particular problem--the establishment of a triangular relationship; that is, the relationship between the gospel songs, the forces of social reform, and revivalism. A revival meeting may be described as a mass assembly of people of various ages who gather to hear the forceful preaching of an evangelist who

A Treasury of Hymns. The Best-Loved Hymns, Carols, Anthems, Children's Hymns, and Gospel Songs

A Treasury of Hymns. The Best-Loved Hymns, Carols, Anthems, Children's Hymns, and Gospel Songs