GOSPEL CULTURE OF MUSIC
In the first few decades of the twentieth century, many African Americans moved from the southern countryside to northern cities. They brought their religious traditions with them to the new urban setting. Congregants from small country churches found their new spiritual homes in storefront city churches. Music for worship centered on the folk spiritual, but with the addition of instrumental accompaniment. This was a big change that led to what we call gospel music today. Three styles of gospel music emerged: the gospel hymn, rural gospel (sacred blues), and the Holiness-Pentecostal style.
GOSPEL HYMN
Charles Albert Tindley (1851–1933) was a Methodist minister in Philadelphia who developed the gospel hymn style. Some of his hymns had their roots in European anthems that lent themselves to choral responses. In his melodies, Tindley sometimes avoided the third and seventh scale degrees to allow for improvisation of blue notes on those degrees. He composed in the traditional call-and-response pattern in verse-and-refrain form, but his instrumental accompaniments moved his work from the spiritual category into the gospel category.
RURAL GOSPEL
The blues of rural areas of the South found their way into church services in the urban North and became gospel music. Religious lyrics were sung in blues style by a solo singer accompanied by harmonica or guitar. Blind Willie Johnson and Blind Mamie Forehand were two important rural gospel singers around the turn of the twentieth century.
HOLINESS-PENTECOSTAL GOSPEL
A very expressive and uninhibited worship style evolved in the new Pentecostal denomination in the first decade of the twentieth century. The Holiness-Pentecostal gospel style was close to the rural spiritual style with its singing and dancing. The use of brass instruments, mandolins, and jugs added to the enthusiasm of these worshipers and placed the music in the gospel category. Arizona Dranes was an important Holiness-Pentecostal gospel performer. Her recordings exhibit her trademark rhythmic ragtime piano playing and her vocal leads that could sometimes be characterized as shouts.
CONTEMPORARY GOSPEL
Contemporary gospel groups are usually made up of small groups of one soloist or four to six singers; accompaniments are usually the same as the secular style the group embraces, such as hip-hop, rap, jazz, or funk.
A look at spirituals and gospel music reveals that although the musical style of the folk spiritual has changed over hundreds of years , the core beliefs, strengths, and values of African American culture are still intact as expressed in spirituals and gospel music
