The changing nature of gospel music: a Southern case study

African American Review, Summer, 1995 by Joyce Marie Jackson

In the 1950s bass singers began to play a lesser role because of the increasing use of instruments. The bass guitar tended to take the place of the vocal bass. (Most groups no longer have "true" vocal bass singers, and if they do, the vocal bass is usually doubled by the bass guitar or piano.)

Although congregational singing was still prevalent in the churches, church and community choirs began to proliferate in the 1950s with the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, the development of a new African American consciousness, and subsequently a uniting of religious institutions for a common cause. Choirs also increased because of easy access to choir conventions, the circulation of more published music, and technological advances such as the radio and phonograph.

In the late 1960s gospel music crossed over to the secular charts for the first time. "Oh Happy Day," recorded in 1969 by the Edwin Hawkins' Singers, reflected the secular style of soul music and launched gospel music into a new era. It was the first gospel song to cross over to the soul charts. Since then other innovations have occurred, such as the use of full orchestras, gospel songs arranged from secular compositions, and the production of gospel-based musicals, among other things.

In the late 1980s, yet another form, "rap gospel," emerged as an outgrowth of the rap music cultural phenomenon that is presently making an impact on not only African American communities but also the nation.

In sum, changes in the African American cultural, social, and historical environment, along with economics, technological advances, and artistic and religious movements, affected the nature of gospel music.

Radio broadcasts, commercial recordings, and touring influenced the development and popularization of gospel, and the launching of race series and the acceleration of live radio broadcasts featuring African American performers further exposed quartet and group singers to an audience beyond local communities. Over the years, gospel music has evolved to encompass performance practices of several genres of music - from spirituals and hymns to blues, jazz, soul, and rap.

The change in context, repertoire, and function of performance also caused changes in the style of performance, within a communal milieu. As the historian Lawrence Levine contends,

while the message of black gospel music manifested a high degree of acculturation to a modern religious consciousness, its style and performance were being revitalized by an intensified connection with the roots of traditional Afro-American religion and the sounds and styles of the twentieth-century secular music of the black community.... (189)

Change has not involved a simple, one-dimensional process, but a complex process of shifting emphases and reaffirmation, of allowing certain new traits to permeate the style while simultaneously reemphasizing specific traditional loyalties and characteristics. In essence, it is an emergence of the new changes and a revitalization of the old continuum.