Gospel music

Gospel music is a genre of music that combines Christian praise vocals with the harmonies of more contemporary forms of music, including blues, country, and rhythm and blues (R&B). It is intended to provide an alternative to secular music. In its purest sense, gospel music offers a means to celebrate and worship religious themes through music that is more modern and easier to sing than traditional hymns. Gospels are often distinguished from other forms of Christian music by their use of choral backgrounds and upbeat rhythms. These sounds offer a contrast to lyrics that are typically dedicated to both the struggles of everyday life and powerful declarations of continuing faith in God.

Gospel music has been linked to the call-and-response form of traditional African American spirituals, in which the choral leader sings a starting lyric that is followed by a group response from the chorus. Other aspects of African American music are also evident in gospel music, including syncopation and innovation. This style of music is often linked to African American churches in the contemporary era. In this context, gospel music provides a cultural and spiritual connection that has helped to define African Americans' shared history in the United States. As a result, this genre has often been the soundtrack for many African American historical events. For instance, during the civil rights movement, gospel songs based on slave spirituals, such as "We Shall Overcome," were often performed during rallies by demonstrators.

Brief History

Gospel music likely originated as a successor to the spirituals sung by African American slaves. Spirituals were often used by newly Christianized slaves to express their desire for personal freedom while evoking a transcendent connection to the Lord that defied their physical suffering in the mortal world. Spirituals were also used as a system of signalling. Some songs were even used to express one's intent to escape bondage through the Underground Railroad without alerting the master. Some well-known examples of spirituals include "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "Wade in the Water." These spirituals combined the lyrical patterns and messages of hymnals with African and Christian rhythms. However, after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which led to the freedom of all slaves in the United States by 1865, African Americans distanced themselves from many aspects of slave culture, including spirituals.

One of the most important early forces guiding the evolution of spirituals into gospel music was the Fisk Jubilee Singers. This group was a chorus of ten African American singers between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five who were either themselves freed slaves or the children of slaves. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were all students at the Fisk Free Colored School (which later became Fisk University) in Nashville, Tennessee. While the school was established with the intent of providing a free education to African Americans, it also had a strong choral program. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were founded to help fundraise money for the school.

As the students were all steeped in the tradition of spirituals, the group's musical director elected to revamp this cultural legacy into a four-part choral framework. The group was founded in 1866, and by 1873 their growing success enabled them to undertake an international tour throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. Upon their return, Fisk Jubilee member Orpheus McAdoo formed the Virginia Jubilee Singers, which continued the traditions of the Fisk Jubilee Singers by spreading gospel music both in the United States and abroad. In this era, such groups helped to promote music that was often called "plantation songs" or "gospel hymns" to a broader audience.

While gospel music is an American creation, it has gained a global following due to the efforts of early choral groups. Gospel music has proven to be especially popular in Africa. Groups such as the Wilberforce Institute Chorus and the Wesley House Quartette regularly toured South Africa throughout the twentieth century and are credited with helping to establish the Zulu music genre called isicathamiya. The gospel genre remains particularly popular in South Africa, where the Soweto Gospel Choir in particular has gained international renown. Performances of gospel music on television and through the promotion of missionaries like Billy Graham helped to further cement the popularity of the genre internationally. Even countries without a strong Christian tradition, such as Japan, increasingly embraced gospel music and adapted it to local tastes after being exposed to the genre in the twentieth century.

Artists such as Harry Burleigh and Thomas A. Dorsey are credited with helping to found the contemporary tradition of gospel music. Burleigh broadened the audience for spirituals by rearranging traditional slave music for use by classically trained musicians. In particular, his 1916 composition "Deep River" became a popular work in recitals by professional musicians of all races. Dorsey's "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," which was released in 1932, was among the first original works in the burgeoning gospel style. Adapted from a nineteenth-century hymnal called "Maitland," the song relates Dorsey's sadness over the death of his wife and child—and ultimately the restoration of his faith in the Lord.

More recently, gospel music has gained broader notice via its use in popular films and musicals. It has been a featured part of such hit movies as Sister Act (1992) and The Preacher's Wife (1996) as well as the musical Mama I Want to Sing! (1983).

Overview

Early gospel music is credited with influencing the development of contemporary R&B, jazz, and blues and even impacted classical composers such as Anton Dvorak. Dvorak in particular was enchanted by the early hybridization of Christian hymns and slave melodies and championed their development as a form of distinctly American music.

Gospel spiritual music was promoted in the 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance as a historically important African American art form. During this phase of its development, gospel music moved more broadly from its religious origins to more public settings. Singers like Paul Robeson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe were regarded as innovative promoters during this era.

Perhaps the most famous gospel performer of the twentieth century was Mahalia Jackson, who was often known as the Queen of Gospel. Over the course of her career, Jackson achieved mainstream success with her gospel records, and she famously sang at the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech. Other prominent gospel performers include Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, BeBe and CeCe Winans, Aretha Franklin, and the Blind Boys of Alabama.

Bibliography

Banjo, Omotayo O., and Kesha Morant Williams. "Behind the Music: Exploring Audiences' Attitudes toward Gospel and Contemporary Christian Music." Journal of Communication and Religion, vol. 37, no. 3, 2014, pp. 117–38.

Butler, Melvin L. "Globalization of Gospel." Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, edited by W.K. McNeill, Routledge, 2013, pp. 139–41.

Harrison, Douglas. Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern Gospel Music. U of Illinois P, 2012.

"The History of Gospel Music." Gospel Music Heritage Month Foundation, gospelmusicheritage.org/site/history/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2016.

Jackson, Jerma. Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age. U of North Carolina P, 2004.

Jones, Randye. "The Gospel Truth about the Negro Spiritual." The Art of the Negro Spiritual, 13 Nov. 2007, www.artofthenegrospiritual.com/research/GospelTruthNegroSpiritual.pdf. Accessed 4 Dec. 2016.

"Mahalia Jackson." Biography, 17 Aug. 2015, www.biography.com/people/mahalia-jackson-9351242#synopsis. Accessed 4 Dec. 2016.

Marovich, Robert M. A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music. U of Illinois P, 2015.

Rucker-Hillsman, Joan. Gospel Music: An African American Art Form. Friesen Press, 2014.

White, Alan. "Origins and History." Early Gospel, www.earlygospel.com/eg-origins.htm. Accessed 4 Dec. 2016.