For my blog revisions, I focused on including additional primary and secondary sources in posts where I only had one or two, adding images and video to make my posts more engaging and dynamic, and providing a more complete historical context for the events I discussed and analysis of my primary sources.
Gospel is a style of music that originated from the blending of traditional African-American spiritual songs and Christian hymns. The genre was first acknowledged sometime in the mid- to late-1700s, and “Gospel Music” was first published as a term in the 1780s. I am interested in the cultural barriers that were crossed with the mixing of African-American and Christian traditional music, and how this mix effected racial and religious politics in the US. In the following posts, I examine the ways in which gospel music gave a voice to a racial minority from the end of the civil war and reconstruction to the present day, where racial issues are obviously still pervasive.
In my first post, The History of African American Religious Oral Tradition and Its Evolution Into Gospel Music, I the first examine the two vastly differing subgenres of gospel music: black or African American traditional hymnals, and their evolution from African chants to American gospel songs. This sets the foundation that the rest of my work builds off of, and is crucial for understanding of the complexities of gospel throughout the 1900s. In contrast with my first post, my second analysis is of white southern gospel music titled The Rise of White Southern Gospel Music as a Popular Genre in the United States. This genre did not reach popularity until the 1920s and diverged in meaning and purpose from more traditional black gospel. In my third post, I analyze the impact of one man on the genre of gospel as a while. Thomas A. Dorsey and "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" covers the impact of Dorsey’s career on both black and white gospel, as well as the development of the genre to include blues. It also shows the level of emotion that can be communicated through music, and the power that this has on listeners. The Contrast Between Northern and Southern Gospel Music in the 1920s, my fourth blog post, compares the commercialization and religious focus of white gospel with the expansion of black gospel, both in its stylistic diversity and as fuel for social and political power. Variety in Gospel Music: White Perception vs. Black Reality uses a 1961 article, “Complex Genre” to draw attention to the intricacies of gospel music within the more traditional black gospel, and the lack of attention paid to the underlying message of the music by white musicians and listeners alike. Likewise, this post describes an upsetting lack of scholarly analysis on black gospel. In Gospel Music Invades Madison Square Garden, my focus is on a prominent music festival in 1959, a time at which black gospel music was a volatile but powerful social and political force whose popularity and influence were growing exponentially. The International Festival of Gospel, Religious, Spiritual and Folk Music provided a community gathering for national and international gospel artists and listeners alike to share their love for the music that identified them. My penultimate entry, Gospel Music in the Civil Rights Movement shows a different side of the power of music as a uniting force, as it examines the effect of gospel on the black Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In this context, music is an inspiring and defining force, as well as one of the most prominent legacies of the movement. Finally, my concluding post examines a single gospel song, arguably the most powerful one in the history of the genre. We Shall Overcome: “The Anthem of the Civil Rights Movement” seeks to communicate the power that a single song can have In conclusion, my blog as a whole shows the evolution of gospel music as an art form, a communicator of emotions and political and social desires, and a disputed point of connection between races in the developing United States over the past century. Gospel crosses cultural barriers and allows free expression for anyone, regardless of race. Gospel music has evolved, but its cultural significance and sociopolitical power have remained poignant throughout its history, creating both a connection and a point of difference between races. "African American gospel music forms an important part of the community's aesthetic expression and is a synthesis of music, dance, poetry, and drama distilled into a unified whole. Gospel music also represents a strong link to African roots in both subtle and sometimes obvious ways" (Jackson, 185). Gospel music exists in two separate genres, which appeared in the United States roughly 40 years apart from very different backgrounds. Black gospel music emerged as its own genre around the 1880s, stemming from slave spirituals, African Americans’ expression of their culture, religion, and traditions. As Joyce Marie Jackson asserts, "participants in the tradition [of gospel music...] readily articulate its significance in the African American community" (185). The songs and religious traditions that slaves had brought from West Africa, where a large portion of Africans had been brought from, emphasized the importance of community to African Americans, and served as a way to unite them through their heritage. “The slaves created the folk spirituals in contexts free of white control” (187). Throughout their enslavement, music served as a way to express themselves even though they were not free to do so in other manners.
“In order to grasp the intricate, changing nature of African American gospel music, one must understand the interrelationship of socio-cultural and historical factors during the evolution of the tradition” (Jackson, 187). Even after the end of the Civil War, when the slaves were freed, the music that had brought them strength throughout the miseries of enslavement remained an integral part of African American culture. The music was used as a way to raise the voices of African Americans who were, only few years after becoming freedmen, thrust back under the spiteful claw of white superiority and exploitation in the form of Jim Crow laws at the turn of the 20th century. "In concept and practice there has been little significant deviation in gospel from many of the fundamental elements found in the traditional music of West Africa” (Jackson, 187). As heard in Bertha Houston’s 1943 song We Are Americans, Praise The Lord, “the music created by gospel performers resulted in an interaction between the original tradition (spirituals) and those new environmental situations that African Americans encountered in their lives” (Jackson, 186). The whole community traditionally was involved in the singing of these songs of worship, led by one singer, but falling together in a celebration of their religion, their heritage, and the place Africans had now achieved as African Americans. As I have already suggested, Black gospel music and African American religion were fundamentally interconnected. Gospel was not sung exclusively in church, but religious meetings were a place for the African American population share their joys and sorrows, to sing praise for their lord and cry out for mercy in times of darkness. Gospel music also contained political messages, such as Bertha Houston’s plea to “bring all the boys back home safe” in We Are Americans, Praise the Lord. Even in times of continued racial inequality, gospel honored the United States and declared, “when you work and play, you be proud of your liberty, for we are Americans, praise the lord” (Houston). Resources Houston, Bertha. 1943. We Are Americans, Praise The Lord. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bertha_Houston_-_We_are_Americans,_Praise_the_Lord.ogg Jackson, Joyce Marie. Summer 1995. “The Changing Nature of Gospel Music: A Southern Case Study.” African American Review 29 (2): 185–200. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3042290. Rewinding Black: Remembering the Stories We Should Never Forget. 2014. http://rewindingblack.com/their-book-inspired-every-form-of-black-music/ "Students of gospel music are in agreement that it was during the 1920s that the tradition of gospel music started its steady climb to respectability and widespread popularity [...] in the United States" (Burnim, 58). Although southern gospel music developed later then black gospel music, it achieved popularity more quickly in the 1920s, when radio made an impact as the first way for media to be shared quickly and easily across the United States. This national shift allowed for the spread of various genres of music, as well as news, talk, and humor shows throughout the country. Unlike the traditional black gospel, which had stemmed from rich culture and history, white southern gospel was more commercialized and produced. Consequently, because it does not represent an entire people with such strength as black gospel did, "southern gospel among the white population is a musical subgenre that has been largely overlooked by music historians" (Goff Jr., 723). Black gospel served as an integral part of religion and community while white gospel provided less of a cultural connection and quickly became more commercialized. As seen in the photo of the Lone Star Quartet below, White gospel tended to be clean-cut and commercialized, featuring artists who recorded music for national audiences rather that singing with a community. This sharing of music meant that the audience reached by gospel music, a genre which was popular at the time, but not overwhelmingly so, increased drastically in a short period of time. Additionally, the advertisement of southern white gospel music led to competition between groups, which began to travel in order to reach new audiences over broader ranges. Competition lead to the rapid increase and spread of music production, and for a time, white southern gospel was more widely known than black gospel, which hadn’t reaped the same benefits of commercialization.
In the early- to mid-1900s there were two main types of gospel, black gospel and white southern gospel. There is, like in any genre, variation within types of gospel music itself, and the genre has evolved over the past century. These can be further divided into country-, folk-, or jazz-style gospel (Jackson, 186), but in the early advent of the genre, the race of those practicing the gospel tradition was the primary manner of identifying the style of the music. These two traditional types of religious music blended together over time, creating what we now identify as gospel music. Resources Burnim, Mellonee. 1980. “Gospel Music Research.” Black Music Research Journal 1 (4): 63–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/779294. Goff Jr., James R. 1998. “The Rise of Southern Gospel Music.” Church History 67 (4) (December): 722–744. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3169850. Jackson, Joyce Marie. Summer 1995. “The Changing Nature of Gospel Music: A Southern Case Study.” African American Review 29 (2): 185–200. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3042290 The Lone Star Quartet. Southern Gospel History: Preserving the Legacy of Southern Gospel Music. 2014. http://www.sghistory.com/index.php?n=L.Lone_Star_Quartet “Gospel is first and foremost a direct descendant of spirituals. What Thomas Dorsey and his friends kept as the defining attributes of gospel music – the call-and-response format, ample room for improvisation, rhythm, frequent use of the flattened seventh and third in melodies – remain true even today.” – Robert Darden, People Get Ready! Thomas A. Dorsey, affectionately known in gospel music circles as “Georgia Tom,” was born in 1899 to a Baptist preacher father and a music teacher mother. During his childhood, he was raised on his family’s values of music and religion, and he quickly became an accomplished blues pianist. Using his background and musical ability, Dorsey joined forces with other African-American musicians of the time and began performing and writing his own songs. Unfortunately for Dorsey, his efforts to peddle his own sheet music were unsuccessful. The early 1930s was still a time of racial divides, and black composers often struggled to get their music published and publicized. He chose a different route, and joined forces with Sallie Martin, a prominent singer who traveled the country performing and peddling Dorsey’s music, the distinctive style of which quickly took hold in Baptist churches throughout the states. In 1932, Dorsey was invited to organize Chicago’s Pilgrim Baptist Church’s gospel chorus, which in turn led to the foundation of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, of which Dorsey was elected national president. This was the career breakthrough he needed. Sadly, Dorsey’s rising success was followed by misfortune, when, at the end of 1932, his wife passed away during childbirth, and his son followed her the next day. These tragedies prompted Dorsey to write the biggest hit of his career, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” his first composition that incorporated both the religious tones of gospel and the blues with which he felt such a strong personal connection. “Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand I am tired, I am weak, I am worn Through the storm, through the night Lead me on to the light Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home When my way grows drear Precious Lord linger near When my life is almost gone Hear my cry, hear my call Hold my hand lest I fall Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home When the darkness appears And the night draws near And the day is past and gone At the river I stand Guide my feet, hold my hand Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home Precious Lord, take my hand Lead me on, let me stand I'm tired, I'm weak, I'm lone Through the storm, through the night Lead me on to the light Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.” Thomas Dorsey was the first African-American composer to have a national impact on both traditional African and white gospel music. During his career, Dorsey composed upwards of 3,000 songs and became the first black man to be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters International Hall of Fame. Dorsey fundamentally changed the nature of gospel music with the introduction of the blues style to the genre. Although the alternative style took more time to make an impact on the more “respectable” black churches who desired assimilation with the more dominant white churches, the people of the congregations ultimately embraced the excitement that the new blues style of gospel brought to their places of worship. Thomas Dorsey’s impact on gospel music in the 1930s has lasted until today. His contribution to African-American gospel has spread to white gospel, and helped the two differing styles find common ground. Although racial barriers were still strong, the shared musical culture helped to start to soften them, and Dorsey’s compositions became the foundation that allowed this cultural shift to begin. Resources Darden, Robert. 2004. People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music. Continuum International Publishing Group. Dorsey, Thomas A. 1932. Precious Lord, Take My Hand. Available from: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/p/l/t/pltmhand.htm White, Alan. 2015. Early Gospel Origins, Early Gospel. Available from http://www.earlygospel.com/eg-origins.htm As evidenced by Thomas Dorsey’s rise to fame in the 20s and 30s, African-Americans did have a substantial role in the styles of gospel music that were most popular. Churches tended to be separated by race and sect, however, and "the southern gospel music industry emerged from the [...] world of rural singing conventions and paperback songbook publishing to become [...] a firmly committed arm of [white] conservative Presbyterianism" (Goff Jr., 724). "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" (Burnim, 63). This increase in gospel music’s popularity among black people took place primarily in the north, while the publicized gospel music of the south was predominately white. However, because gospel is traditionally thought of as an African-American genre of music, "southern gospel among the white population is a musical subgenre that has been largely overlooked by music historians as well as historians of American popular culture" (Goff Jr., 723). In this post, I will aim to distinguish the notable differences between the southern, white gospel and the northern, black gospel of the 1920s.
On May 24, 1959, the first annual International Festival of Gospel, Religious, Spiritual and Folk Music was held at Madison Square Gardens. Mahalia Jackson, affectionately known as "Gospeldom's First Lady" was the main attraction. She had achieved fame in the late 1940s with her hit, Move Up a Little Higher, and was arguably the most famous female gospel soloist of the ‘50s. In addition, well-known gospel quartets hailed from Chicago, Pittsburgh, and as far as Greenville, Augusta, and Raleigh (Gospel Music, 1).
It is important to note the title of this festival, for it encapsulates the diverse roots and styles that are part of gospel music. By the 1940s and ‘50s, gospel music styles had become more established and, while they continued to evolve in minor ways, the basic structure was stagnant and well known. The announcement for this festival was published on May 23rd in The New York Amsterdam News (AmNews), a prominent black newspaper of the time, which was established in 1909 and is still published today. The Festival’s announcement in this paper specifically was significant, for the AmNews was far and above the most influential, widely read black news source in the country, covering such stories as the struggles of the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights Movement (AmNews, 1). The success of the Festival was evident, and to following year, in 1960, more than 300 performers and 10,000 fans came together to celebrate their people’s heritage and history through gospel music (Conley, 1). Mahalia Jackson returned as the biggest name, but the Festival also brought performers from as far as Tel Aviv, Israel. Gospel music had spread, not just nationally and in its countries of origin in Africa, but worldwide. The consistent success of the festival was pivotal to the unification of blacks in a society that was brimming with racial tensions. Just ten years after the festival’s inception, Martin Luther King, Jr. would be assassinated at the climax of the Civil Rights Movement. The sharing of music was an opportunity for peaceful unification of citizens, not African Americans alone, but as a bridge of connection between blacks and whites, as I will discuss in my next post. Resources “About Us.” New York Amsterdam News. Web. 17 Mar. 2015. Available from: http://amsterdamnews.com/about/ Conley, Robert. "Gospel Songs Stir 10,000 At Garden." New York Times (1923-Current file): 18. Aug 29 1960. ProQuest.Web. 17 Mar. 2015. "Gospel Music Invades Madison Square Garden." New York Amsterdam News (1943-1961), City edition ed.: 13. May 23 1959. ProQuest. Web. 16 Mar. 2015. Available from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/225509758/fulltextPDF/CF01277CD7C34295PQ/1?accountid=14244 Photograph of Mahalia Jackson: http://www.mahaliajacksontheater.com/images/pages/mahalia.jpg Robert Shelton's 1961 article, Complex Genre, in The New York Times is an analysis of the white reaction to traditional black gospel (Shelton, 1). As I have discussed in past posts, the southern white gospel varied greatly from black traditional spirituals in sound and cultural significance. The northern Negro audience had already been reached effectively. Radio stations in New York City alone played nearly 50 hours of “Negro” gospel music per week and many black churches had gospel choirs and soloists (Shelton, 1). Shelton asserts that if white audiences were exposed to "the undiluted music of the Negro gospel movement, some sort of explosion of taste [was] bound to happen" (Shelton, 1). This sharing of culture through music had the possibility to be a unifying force in a nation that was in the midst of intense racial tension and struggles, which were only just coming to a head in the late 1950s and 60s.
Shelton first mentions Mahalia Jackson, the headlining singer of the International Festival of Gospel, Religious, Spiritual and Folk Music, and her power, along with that of other great black musicians such as Ray Charles and Odetta, to reach audiences beyond just the African American population. Although, by 1961, as Shelton argues, these big names in gospel music had edged their way into mainstream American music, the biggest wave of black traditional music was yet to come. In the same way that the Gospel Music Festival established a method of unifying, it additionally provided a space for literally thousands of black musicians and avid fans to unite and use their music to reach across barriers of skin color that had grown stronger over the past decade. Romeo Phillips, author of the article Some Perceptions of Gospel Music points out that, stylistically, southern white and black gospel have evolved into separate genres and "even though the two types of music have some similar characteristics, they are really quite different, and I think too many people confuse them" (171). "Whites are gradually adopting gospel music, although they give it a more refined style. Also, they're commercializing it" (174). White gospel had defined itself as a separate genre, and Phillips asserts, "when whites listen to [black] gospel groups on their campuses, they assume gospel is representative if all black Christianity, that it is black culture" (175). This perception was harmful because it failed to acknowledge the diversity that existed within black gospel, instead defining it simply by race. Robert Shelton believes that the research and analysis of gospel music that had been done in 1961 was insufficient to that done on jazz, blues, and other primarily black musical genres. The complexities of gospel styles, such as "hard gospel, sweet gospel, hallelujah shouts, [and] "down home" gospel" (Shelton, 1) merited further scholarly analysis. Negro gospel as a genre had established itself as a defined genre, but its biggest impact on the population of the United States as a whole was yet to come. Resources Phillips, Romeo E. 1982. Some Perceptions of Gospel Music. The Black Perspective in Music. (10:2). 167-178. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1214620 Shelton, Robert. "Complex Genre." New York Times (1923-Current file): 1. Mar 19 1961. ProQuest. Web. 17 Mar. 2015. Gospel music has historically been used as a medium through which to unite groups of people, so what better cause to ignite than that of the Civil Rights Movement? The Civil Rights Movement was powered by to main forces simultaneously working towards equal rights for African Americans in the United States: nonviolent direct action and a civil rights struggle whose maltreatment was publicized sufficiently to communicate the injustices that activists and African Americans as a whole confronted every day (Kurtz). Music played a crucial role in both of these aspects of the movement. Although it did not stand alone as an impacting force, Jeffrey Kurtz asserts “words, music, and images together made a picture of moral clarity from which America could not look away.” Ben Chavis also highlights the multifaceted approach that made the Civil Rights Movement so effective, citing the strategic practice and use of prayer, song, sermon and direct social action that "moved" millions of people to take a protracted stand for racial justice and equality” as a primary factor in the movement’s ultimate success. Music has been a force that empowers and uplifts oppressed social groups. Black gospel, more specifically, supported African Americans through slavery, suppression, Jim Crow laws, and political disenfranchisement, so it was the obvious source of inspiration for the Civil Rights Movement. Jesse Jackson, a Civil Rights activist remarked that “while mass action -- marches, sit-ins, boycotts and the like -- created the body of the civil rights movement between 1955 and 1965, ‘the music breathed its soul’” (Harrington), while Newsweek realized the groundbreaking nature of music’s involvement in the movement, stating "history has never known a protest movement so rich in song . . . nor a movement in which songs are as important” (Harrington). Serious songs communicated the depth of the damage caused to African Americans by racism, while uplifting songs, like The Impressions’ “People Get Ready” inspired the movement that a brighter future was indeed on its way. The Civil Rights Movement was inspired by a history of musical empowerment, and in turn inspired the creation of new music that supported the cause or recounted the history. Simple songs, such as We Shall Overcome, which I will discuss in further detail in my next post, All My Trials, and Oh Freedom were widely known and sung at marches, sit-ins, and rallies. Black and white artists alike were inspired by the power of the movement and songs from Bob Dylan’s Only a Pawn in Their Game to Common’s A Dream, which samples Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic speech have been inspired by the power of the Civil Rights Movement (Gundersen).
Music inspired and defined the Civil Rights Movement, and has been one of its lasting legacies. The power of music is evident in the united voices of united African Americans demanding their rights, and it echoes the history and legacy of music as a sociopolitical force throughout the history of the United States. Resources Chavis, Ben. "Hip-Hop, Civil Rights Movement Share Beat." Philadelphia Tribune: 1. Feb 23 2014. ProQuest. Web. 5 Apr. 2015. Gundersen, Edna. "Music Propelled this Movement." USA TODAYAug 28 2013. ProQuest. Web. 5 Apr. 2015 . Harrington, Richard. "Songs of Civil Rights Movement Revisited." Florida Times UnionJan 26 1997. ProQuest. Web. 5 Apr. 2015 . Kurtz, Jeffrey B. “Civil Rights Movement.” Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Ed. Lynda Lee Kaid, and Christina Holtz-Bacha. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2008. 109-10. SAGE knowledge. Web. “It was the most powerful song of the 20th century. It started out in church pews and picket lines, inspired one of the greatest freedom movements in U.S. history, and went on to topple governments and bring about reform all over the world.” – The Library of Congress Within the gospel that empowered the Civil Rights Movement, We Shall Overcome was, without dispute, the most powerful and influential song. The song was not written for the movement, as it had originally been used in 1945 by picketing tobacco workers in Charleston, South Carolina (Library of Congress). Even this 1945 version of the song was based off a historic melody that has been sung by African Americans since before the Civil War with various lyrics (Folk Music). The history of We Shall Overcome is a long one, but its biggest direct impact was during the 1960s. Pete Seeger, a folk singer in the mid 1900s, learned We Will Overcome, an earlier version of the song, from Zilphia Horton, the Culture Director of the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee when visiting the school in the late 1940s. Seeger then added some verses of his own, changed the title of the song slightly, and began performing We Shall Overcome at his own shows. We Shall Overcome was discovered by African American activists in the 1950s and performed at a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, meeting in 1960, solidifying it as one of the defining songs of the Civil Rights movement. From this point on, We Shall Overcome was an anthem of civil rights protesters, and a staple of marches throughout the south. It was used, along with the other traditional, empowering gospel songs, in sit-ins, marches, and by activists in jail awaiting their release. We Shall Overcome has continued to be a song of inspiration and power due to its universality. It communicates a message of strength to every oppressed group, whether the oppression is based on race, gender, class or economic status. As I have already discussed in Gospel Music in the Civil Rights Movement, the songs of the Civil Rights movement were powerful unifying forces that empowered people on a social level and allowed them to reach their political goals. The passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965 did not end the use of We Shall Overcome, and it has been used to empower numerous social groups in their struggles for representation over the following decades.
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