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By J. MATTHEW COBB
The history and the evolution of gospel music continues to expand with new pages of details and newer chapters yet unfolding. That is because the vast nature of gospel music - considering its historic relevance and sketchy background from the pre-war music of the 1910s - is a very old artform of music but one that deserves a major platform of recognition and a great passion for future preservation. If it were not for the contributions of gospel music, there would be no boogie-woogie, rock’n roll, soul, funk or even rhythm and blues. Of course, a statement so overrated as that deserves a considerable amount of proof and validity since it surrounds the premise that gospel music has played a major role in American music. The Early pioneers of the gospel movement, mostly staged by composers, included Reverend Charles Albert Tindley, Lucie E. Campbell, Thomas A. Dorsey, Theodore R. Frye, William Brewster, Sr, Roberta Martin, Alex Bradford, and Kenneth Morris. The next generation of gospel torchbearers continued in the path of traditional excellence while bringing forth newer innovations towards the contemporary gospel age, which included Reverend James Cleveland, Andrae’ Crouch, Edwin Hawkins, Walter Hawkins and many others to come. The evolution of gospel music is a startling tale filled with monumental peaks of unexplainable triumphs and, of course, rocky and turbulent times. Needless to say, it is the tough moments that actually brings edification to gospel music’s content and context. There has always been an underlining stereotype that usually identifies gospel listeners as being poor, uneducated, underprivileged, or to use vernacular terms to best describe such a broad category of persons - “the least of these.” The ongoing stories of tragedy and despair ravage the biographical nature of gospel music’s history. Some of those early challenges, such as the struggles of Thomas A. Dorsey’s journey from the blues to a very young, undeveloped genre of spiritual music, his encounter with social ostracism and the grievance he had to bear of his wife and unborn son during childbirth, helps explain how gospel music emerged from its troubled infancy to become a respected art and one of the greatest musical expressions of survival. As African-Americans began to move from the social and economic terror of the Deep South during the early 19th century, this broke ground for new situations, which fostered new sounds - according to renowned Smithsonian curator Bernice Johnson Reagon, author of the book We’ll Understand It Better By and By. “Into new urban communities,” she further adds, “we brought dreams of change; we also brought as much of the past as we could carry - traditions that provided solid ground for uprooted families in strange, often cold, environments. The sound of Black America expanded to embrace this reality. The new dimensions of this expansion are most evident in the development of the urban black church music that became known as gospel.” This quest for better living, fair treatment along with the severities of the Civil Rights movement only added extra momentum to the life span of gospel. Gospel’s greatest triumph, setting a stage for the contemporary gospel age, is strongly documented as being Edwin Hawkins’ 1968 crossover #1 pop hit, “Oh Happy Day.” The song’s influential elements, featuring dominant expressions of soul and pop music, began to swarm from its gospel base to R&B/soul radio and even made significant leaps and bounds into the Top 40 (pop) radio stations. Never before had gospel music achieved such rewarding commercial appeal up to this point. And because of this major contribution, gospel music stands strong as a commanding force in pop music and continues to open new and rewarding chapters in its interesting saga of longevity. But even though the commercial exploitation from American culture has added a gloss of popularity to this spiritual art form, the untold stories and hidden truths of the unsung heroes of this genre - mostly unrecognized by today’s generation - are just as important and vital to gospel’s century-old anthology. In the Though the full story of gospel music cannot be told in a matter of a few pages, it is with our greatest intent to do our best to create a fine narrative that best summarizes gospel’s mostly untold story and to add dimensions of depth and texture to it while providing great visibility to its exposure. The Class is now in session.
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series, constructed with the hopes of educating students about the pioneering efforts of gospel music, supplies that proof and also goes into deeper topics of discussion situated around its early years and the architects that helped revolutionize this religious and cultural phenomenon into a burgeoning, wide-accepted popular form of black music.
