Copyright - 1992 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.

gospel music

      The term gospel music embraces several types of song, all of 
      which share an emotional, personal identification with the 
      biblical text and a rich musical vocabulary.  Of the various 
      types, the gospel music sung in black Baptist churches is perhaps 
      the most important, because it has influenced not only white 
      gospel forms but also certain styles of popular music. Unlike the 
      SPIRITUAL, which is rooted in the formal Protestant hymn, black 
      gospel music is extemporaneous, highly emotional, and joyful.  
      Based on a sung dialogue between congregation and preacher, with 
      the preacher setting the text and the congregation supplying 
      musical affirmation, gospel music inspires a "fire and excitement 
      that sometimes, without warning, fill a church, causing {it} to 
      'rock' " (James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time).  In the 1940s, 
      Mahalia JACKSON, Clara Ward, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe began 
      recording gospel-style music.  In the 1950s and '60s, 
      church-trained musicians took the style into popular music.  
      Singers like Aretha FRANKLIN and James BROWN recorded what came 
      to be known as SOUL, a style that reproduces the vocal devices of 
      gospel: use of falsetto, bent and sliding tones, shouts, and the 
      stretching-out of a single sung syllable over many notes.

      White gospel music, sung at Protestant revival meetings, was 
      similar to black gospel music in its spontaneity and emotional 
      fervor.  A popular offshoot of white revivals was the gospel 
      hymn, which can be traced to evangelists Dwight L. MOODY and Ira 
      D. Sankey, who exposed large audiences to such hymns and composed 
      many others.  White quartet and family gospel groups now dominate 
      this genre;  in addition, a youth-music movement, largely in the 
      South, has developed a repertoire of pop-gospel music.

      Bibliography:  Blackwell, Lois S., Wings of the Dove: The Story 
      of Gospel Music in America (1978);  Gentry, L., A History and 
      Encyclopedia of Country Western and Gospel Music (1961; repr. 
      1988);  Heilbut, Tony, The Gospel Sound, rev. ed. (1985);  
      Lovell, John, Jr., Black Song (1986); Sankey, Ira D., et al., 
      Gospel Hymns (1895;  repr. 1972);  Shaw, Arnold, The World of 
      Soul (1970);  Warrick, Mancel, and Hillsman, Joan R., The 
      Progress of Gospel Music (1977).