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Black gospel music is primarily a marketing term used to help potential buyers distinguish it from other forms of Christian music, such as contemporary Christian music or Christian rock and Southern gospel (a merger of barbershop quartet style harmony and country instrumentation, see also Southern Gospel Music Association), which have similar lyrical form but very different musical styling.

Origins (1920s – 1940s)

What most people would identify today as 'gospel' began very differently eighty years ago. The gospel music that Thomas A. Dorsey, Sallie Martin, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Willie Mae Ford Smith and other pioneers popularized had its roots in the more freewheeling forms of religious devotion of 'Sanctified' or 'Holiness' churches — sometimes called 'holy rollers' by other denominations — who encouraged individual church members to 'testify', speaking or singing spontaneously about their faith and experience of the Holy Ghost and Getting Happy, sometimes while dancing in celebration. In the 1920s Sanctified artists, such as Arizona Dranes, many of whom were also traveling preachers, started making records in a style that melded traditional religious themes with barrelhouse, blues and boogie-woogie techniques and brought jazz instruments, such as drums and horns, into the church. It is also important to note that gospel music is not just a form of music. It is an intricate part of the religious experience for many churchgoers.

Dorsey, who had once composed for and played piano behind blues giants Tampa Red, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, worked hard to develop this new music, organizing an annual convention for gospel artists, touring with Martin to sell sheet music and gradually overcoming the resistance of more conservative churches to what many of them considered sinful, worldly music. Combining the sixteen bar structure and blues modes and rhythms with religious lyrics, Dorsey's compositions opened up possibilities for innovative singers such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe to apply their very individual talents to his songs, while inspiring church members to 'shout' — either to call out catch phrases or to add musical lines of their own in response to the singers.

This looser style affected other black religious musical styles as well. The most popular groups in the 1930s were male quartets or small groups such as The Golden Gate Quartet, who sang, usually unaccompanied, in jubilee style, mixing careful harmonies, melodious singing, playful syncopation and sophisticated arrangements to produce a fresh, experimental style far removed from the more somber hymn-singing. These groups also absorbed popular sounds from pop groups such as The Mills Brothers and produced songs that mixed conventional religious themes, humor and social and political commentary. They began to show more and more influence from gospel as they incorporated the new music into their repertoire.

Golden age (1940s – 1950s)

The new gospel music composed by Dorsey and others proved very important among quartets, who began turning in a new direction. Groups such as the Dixie Hummingbirds, Pilgrim Travelers, Soul Stirrers, Swan Silvertones, Sensational Nightingales and Five Blind Boys of Mississippi introduced even more stylistic freedom to the close harmonies of jubilee style, adding ad libs and using repeated short phrases in the background to maintain a rhythmic base for the innovations of the lead singers. Individual singers also stood out more as jubilee turned to "hard gospel" and as soloists began to shout more and more, often in falsettos anchored by a prominent bass. Quartet singers combined both individual virtuoso performances and innovative harmonic and rhythmic invention — what Ira Tucker Sr. and Paul Owens of the Hummingbirds called "trickeration" — that amplified both the emotional and musical intensity of their songs.

At the same time that quartet groups were reaching their zenith in the 1940s and 1950s, a number of women singers were achieving stardom. Some, such as Mahalia Jackson and Bessie Griffin, were primarily soloists, while others, such as Clara Ward, The Caravans, The Davis Sisters and Dorothy Love Coates, sang in small groups. While some groups, such as The Ward Singers, employed the sort of theatrics and daring group dynamics that male quartet groups used, for the most part women gospel singers relied instead on overpowering technique and dramatic personal witness to establish themselves.

Roberta Martin in Chicago stood apart from other women gospel singers in many respects. She led groups that featured both men and women singers, employed an understated style that did not stress individual virtuosity, and sponsored a number of individual artists, such as James Cleveland, who went on to change the face of gospel in the decades that followed.

Gospel's influences

GUGU Gospel artists, who had been influenced by pop music trends for years, had a major influence on early rhythm and blues artists, particularly the "bird groups" such as the Orioles, the Ravens and the Flamingos, who applied gospel quartets' a cappella techniques to pop songs in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. Individual gospel artists, such as Sam Cooke, and secular artists who borrowed heavily from gospel, such as Ray Charles and James Brown, had an even greater impact later in the 1950s, helping to create soul music by bringing even more gospel to rhythm and blues. Elvis Presley was less known for his gospel but he was a gospel artist. His gospel favorites were "Why me Lord," How Great Thou Art, and "You´ll never walk alone".

Many of the most prominent soul artists, such as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett and Al Green, had roots in the church and gospel music and brought with them much of the vocal styles of artists such as Clara Ward and Julius Cheeks.During the 70's artist like Edwin Hawkins with the 1969 hit "O Happy Day",and Andre Crouch hit"Take me Back" were big inspirations on Gospel Music. Secular songwriters often appropriated gospel songs, such as the Pilgrim Travelers' song "I've Got A New Home", which Ray Charles turned into "Lonely Avenue", or "Stand By Me", which Ben E. King and Leiber and Stoller adapted from a well-known gospel song, or Marvin Gaye's "Can I Get A Witness", which reworks traditional gospel catchphrases. In other cases secular musicians did the opposite, attaching phrases and titles from the gospel tradition to secular songs to create soul hits such as "Come See About Me" for the Supremes and "99 1/2 Won't Do" for Wilson Pickett.

Gospel choirs appearing in other genres

One trend in modern music is to use a gospel choir occasionally in the middle of a song in a different genre, such as alternative or rock. The following are examples.

• Downfall by matchbox twenty
• Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers
• I'm Alright by Jars of Clay
• All These Things That I've Done by The Killers
• Crazy by Gnarls Barkley
• I'm Wrong About Everything by John Wesley Harding

External links

• Edwin Hawkins
• God's Gospel
• Christian Music Monthly

See also

• Black Gospel Music
• Black Gospel Music from gospel writers
• Free Gospel MIDI Songs

• Gospel music
• African American culture