When I think of Easter, my thoughts turn to the glorious gospel music that has been gifted to us over the years. I wasn’t raised in a Black church, or any church for that matter. That doesn’t stop me from feeling the spirit when I hear the joy-filled harmonies and percussive hand-clapping that marks another year of surviving in a nation that enslaved us, discriminated against us, disrespected, and repressed we Black folks. Yet still we continue to survive and thrive.
Gospel music, which has both influenced and been influenced by blues, jazz, R&B, folk, country, rap, hip-hop, and other American music genres—is alive and well. Come join our celebration of the gift of gospel!
”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
One of the best documentaries I’ve seen about gospel music—and there are quite a few excellent ones—is a 2022 film produced and written by Stacy Robinson for the “Chicago Stories” series from Chicago’s PBS station, WTTW.
Danielle Sanders reviewed Robinson’s “The Birth of Gospel Music in Chicago” for the Chicago Defender.
The “Birth of Gospel” Highlights Chicago’s Rich History in Gospel Music
Weaving through African spiritual traditions, slavery, and the Great Migration, “The Birth of Gospel” tells the rich history of the Black Christian spiritual experience through music.
[…]
Writer and producer of “The Birth of Gospel” Stacey Robinson says gospel music and the story of Thomas Dorsey is an intricate part of the fabric of Chicago’s history. “Chicago Stories shows the diversity of Chicago. The city is a melting pot, and it is important to reflect that. The city is unique in how its neighborhoods retain their own culture. This season of “Chicago Stories” looks at the richness of Chicago neighborhoods through a modern lens,” she says.
[…]
Robertson said she wanted to connect audiences with how music and spirituality are deeply intertwined in Black culture. “I hope when audiences see this, they realize that spirituality is at the base of our humanity. The Black church was so important and allowed us ways to get through slavery, Jim Crow, and help sustain us during the Civil Rights Movement and it continues to be a source today.”
The series website takes an in-depth look at what the documentary covers, like “The Great Migration and Thomas Dorsey’s Creation of Gospel Music.”
In 1915, Black Southerners began to move north and west in the Great Migration in search of work, a chance for a better life, and to escape the Jim Crow laws of the South. Chicago, having an established Black community, was considered “the promised land.” The influential, Black-owned Chicago Defender newspaper promoted that idea, publishing stories about Southerners who had succeeded in Chicago, as well as job postings, housing listings, and travel tips. Between 1915 and 1940, the city’s Black population doubled.
[…]
When pastor Dr. Junius C. Austin of Pilgrim Baptist Church witnessed the enthusiasm of the congregation at Ebenezer, he invited Dorsey to create a gospel choir and serve as the director at his church, which was one of the city’s largest Black congregations at the time. From there, gospel music spread.
“In the Chicago Defender, every week in 1932, you start to see churches announce, ‘We’re building a gospel chorus,’” Marovich said.
In 1932, amid his newfound professional success, tragedy struck Dorsey again [He’d previously lost a close friend]. Dorsey’s wife Nettie died in childbirth. Their child died a day later. Out of this tragedy, he wrote “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” He debuted the song at Pilgrim Baptist Church.
“This song was his call out to God that I’m feeling helpless, that I’m feeling hopeless, but it’s become a mantra for…many people who have felt hopeless,” Williams said.
Here is the entire film, which is absolutely worth 55 minutes or so of your time.
RELATED STORY: Black music is Black history: Our spirituals
Another documentary I highly recommend was produced for the BBC’s “Omnibus” series in 1996. The Library of Congress has limited notes on “Through Many Dangers: The Story of Gospel Music”:
Director, Andrew Dunn, James Marsh
- Made-for-TV series.
- Feature film (over 60 minutes).
- “Highway to heaven”, “Precious Lord, take my hand” by Thomas Dorsey. (Songs)
- Interviews/contributions/music from Robert & Lille Mae Butler, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Arc Choir, Cissy Houston, Bobby Banks, Sallie Martin & Thomas Dorsey (1980), Mahalia Jackson (tv clip), the Fairfield Four, Rosetta Tharpe (tv, film clips), Aretha Franklin (tv clip), the Clara Ward Singers (1957), Shirley Caesar, the Dixie Hummingbirds (clip), James Cleveland (clip), Vanessa Bell Armstrong, the Clark Sisters. (Personnel on Camera)
The LoC’s film notes really are pretty skimpy. They don’t mention the numerous experts and narrators in the program. I also couldn’t find any reviews of the film, so here are my additions. The key narrator throughout the film is the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, who joined the ancestors on 2018. Contributors include music professor Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer, cultural historian Dr. Charles Wolfe, religion professor Dr. Albert Raboteau, poet and playwright Amiri Baraka, and Africana studies professor Dr. Barbara Hampton.
Here’s the full film, which clocks in at just under 90 minutes.
When I was growing up, the only truly “church person” in my household was my grandmother. She was white and loved Black gospel, which she was exposed to in Chicago when she attended Black churches with my grandfather. As an interracial couple, they were unwelcome in the white community and especially not in their churches.
It was through her that I first heard many groups that were singing gospel, which, to my young ears, didn’t sound much different from the secular Black quartets and quintets of the time. What I loved most was the harmony and the electric energy.
Ethnomusicologist and folklorist Dr. Joyce Marie Jackson explores the history of the early gospel quartets and quintets for Carnegie Hall’s Timeline of African American Music.
The Soul Stirrers is believed to have been the first jubilee quartet to shift completely to gospel music. They moved away from a collective group singing style to one that featured a lead tenor supported by refrain lines repeated throughout the song (“Glory, Glory, Halleluiah” and “Wonderful”). After World War II, from about 1945 to 1960, gospel quartets reigned supreme. Many semi-professional groups toured the country, and some made performing their full-time profession. They sang at special gospel programs held in auditoriums and other large venues. By the 1960s, the gospel quartet sound had acquired shouts, screams and growls, and other non-verbal utterances. Rhythmic thigh slapping and other bodily movements further intensified the style, represented best by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama led by Clarence Fountain (“Alone and Motherless”). New trends eclipsed the popularity of gospel quartets, but their sound resurfaced in rhythm and blues vocal groups, many of whose members began in gospel quartets, such as Billy Ward and the Dominoes and the Isley Brothers.
The list of groundbreaking gospel groups is far too long to cover in one story, so let’s sample a few!
Shelia G. Kidd wrote a biography of The Soul Stirrers for the Texas State Historical Association.
The Soul Stirrers was one of Texas’s most innovative gospel groups and pioneers of the contemporary quartet sound. It was the first gospel group to incorporate two lead singers. Their unique arrangements, which served as the basis for doo-wop and R&B, set the pace for gospel and pop vocal groups making the Soul Stirrers forefathers in the development of R&B.
[…]
The 1950s brought many changes to the Soul Stirrers. Near the end of 1950, Harris left the group and was replaced by nineteen-year-old Sam Cooke, singer with the Highway QCs, who had idolized and modeled his style after Harris. The group also added Paul Foster to be the new second tenor (replacing Medlock). In 1951 the Soul Stirrers recorded their first album featuring Cooke, entitled Jesus Gave Me Water. Cooke’s youthfulness, angelic voice, and idol good looks brought a sexual presence to the group causing women, even in this religious setting, to faint. Their single “Peace in the Valley” featuring Cooke became a classic version of the hymn. By the mid-1950s longtime member Bruster retired and baritone Bob King joined the group as their first instrumentalist. He played guitar in addition to singing vocals, thus making the Soul Stirrers the first gospel group to use instrumental backup.
Yes, that Sam Cooke.
Here’s “Peace in the Valley.”
And here’s “Wonderful.”
Finally, here’s “Stand By Me, Father.”
A biography of The Blind Boys of Alabama can be found on their website.
On June 10, 1944, six teenagers from the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind arrived at the headquarters of Birmingham radio station WSGN. Broadcast from a studio at the Dixie Carlton Hotel, the station was a fixture for news and music in the area, but for the students of the Institute, it was far more than that: it was a beacon of hope, a refuge from the harsh realities of the Jim Crow South, a portal to another world they could only dream of. With no radios available at school, the boys had to get creative in order to listen, often slipping away to the homes of nearby friends and family members in the afternoons to catch vocal groups like the Golden Gate Quartet on their favorite program, “Echoes Of The South.” On this particular afternoon, however, the boys would be doing the singing themselves, performing professionally for the very first time as The Happy Land Jubilee Singers. They had no way of knowing, of course, but the sextet—who would later change their name to the Blind Boys of Alabama—was embarking on an 80-year odyssey that day, one that would take them everywhere from Carnegie Hall and the White House to the Grammys and the Gospel Hall of Fame as they broke down racial barriers, soundtracked the Civil Rights movement, and helped redefine modern gospel music in the process.
Here’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine.”
One of my all-time favorite versions of “Amazing Grace” comes from the Blind Boys.
Let’s move onto the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi.
In the 1930s four blind students at the Piney Woods School south of Jackson—Lawrence Abrams, Archie Brownlee, Joseph Ford, and Lloyd Woodard—began singing together as the Cotton Blossom Singers, performing sacred and popular songs at fund-raising events for the school. Alan Lomax recorded them on 9 March 1937 for the Library of Congress. By the early 1940s the group performed religious music as the Jackson Harmoneers, singing in the ensemble jubilee style first popularized in the late nineteenth century by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. By 1942 the original quartet was joined by Melvin Henderson.
Enjoy this rare performance of “Leaning On the Everlasting Arms”
And here’s “Our Father.”
Here’s a brief biography of the Swan Silvertones, from the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.
Formed 1938, Coalwood, McDowell County
The Swan Silvertones were one of the greatest gospel quartets of the ’50s and ’60s. The group, originally called The Four Harmony Kings, and then the Silvertone Singers, was founded in 1938 by Claude Jeter, an Alabama native who moved to McDowell County to work in the mines. One of the original members was Solomon Womack whose nephew, Bobby Womack, became a star in soul and rock.
Jack Neely wrote a feature about the Silvertones for the Knoxville History Project; it highlights their lasting influence on artists from Paul Simon to John Fogarty (Credence Clearwater Revival) to Al Green to Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. It’s worth a read.
Have a listen to “Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep.”
Here’s a little background on Clara Ward and the Ward Singers, from their Malaco record label site.
In 1931, seven-year-old Clara Ward and her nine-year-old sister Willarene (better known as “Willa”) began performing with their mother, Gertrude, in Philadelphia. Gertrude first called the group “The Consecrated Gospel Singers,” then simply “The Ward Trio.” The three singers, with the two girls alternating as piano accompanists, initially appeared at churches in and around their hometown, but after creating a sensation at the National Baptist Convention in Chicago in 1943, they began touring widely. In 1949, having expanded the lineup to include singers Henrietta Waddy and Marion Williams, the group traveled to Los Angeles and cut their first records for the Miltone label. Curiously, none of the songs they recorded in Los Angeles were ever issued on Miltone, but many soon appeared on other labels, including Dolphin’s of Hollywood, Gotham and Savoy.
By 1950, the Ward Singers were the hottest female gospel group in the land. Two of their songs—Surely God Is Able and Move Up a Little Higher, both released by Gotham that year—became major gospel hits, said to have sold more than a million copies each. Gotham billed them as “The Famous Ward Singers (of Philadelphia)” and the name stuck, albeit without the name of the city. The group also recorded over the years as “Clara Ward and the Ward Singers.” Clara’s distinctive arrangement of the traditional hymn How I Got Over, recorded in 1950 for Gotham, was soon successfully covered by Mahalia Jackson for Apollo Records in New York. It became Jackson’s signature song.
Here’s a live performance, recorded at the 1962 Antibes Jazz Festival.
In February, Henry Louis Gates launched his new special “Gospel” series on PBS for Black History Month.
Here’s the trailer:
Bob Marovich at The Journal of Gospel Music wrote this preview:
In GOSPEL, Gates speaks with dozens of clergymen, singers, and scholars about their connection to the music that has transcended its origins and now spreads “the good word” all around the world. The series features interviews with notable names, including Dionne Warwick, U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, Rev. Otis Moss III, professor Michael Eric Dyson, and awe-inspiring musical performances of Gospel favorites “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus,” “Total Praise,” and others from talents including The Belle Singers, Cory Henry, Celisse, and more.
Gospel is more than the soundtrack of the African American experience, “it’s the beating heart and soul,” said Gates. “From the Great Migration to today, the history of Black gospel music and preaching is one of constant movement, and it’s long been a dream of mine to bring it to public television. We’re blessed to have such outstanding partners in delivering this series and concert at a time in our nation when the need for Gospel’s transcendent, healing powers is so great.”
Join me in the comments for much more music. Happy Easter to those who celebrate it, and a happy day of gospel music to all!