Another site that will probably interest some people is www.hoyhoy.com.It's actually about rock'n'roll music, but part of it's discussion is it's black gospel roots.It is a very excellent site that corrects some extremly common myths about the genre.See this page if interested:

www.hoyhoy.com/dawn_of_rock.htm

If you go this web page above, it offers some links to hear examples of old black gospel (though they use the term by it's looser defenition).The musical link that sais "this 1934 recording" is a 20th Century survival of a ring shout, probably something from a Sanctified or Pentecostal type church.Another link that sais "Campmeeting Jubilee" is said to be a 1916 minstrel recording of black gospel, though it's musical style is straight up barbershop.

Speaking of barbershop music I recently received a book in the mail called "Four Parts, No Waiting" by Gage Averill.It was a review of this book that originally gave me insight into the Austrian roots of barbershop and the related realm of black gospel quartet harmony.The actual book though also cites it's German connections.According to this work Germans and Austrians played a major role in the maturation of American part-singing, especially through a series of tours by singing groups from the Austrian and Swiss border region of the Alps.These tours to America which began in the 1830's included singing groups by the names of the German Minstrels, the Alpine Minstrels, and two different groups that went by the name of the Rainer Family (also known as the Tyrolese Minstrels).The most influential of these singing groups was the last formation of the Rainer Family (a quartet), who amazed American audiences with their close harmony and well blended voices that made it very difficult to tell which singer was singing which part.The only problem is they sang in the German language, so many Americans could not understand a word they sang.But soon their songs would be published with English words and many American born quartets would spring up in their likeness.The most influential of these American quartets was the Hutchinson Family who were doing concerts as early as 1840.

Interestingly enough The Virginia Minstrels who formed in 1843 and kicked off the black minstrel show, took the "minstrel" part of their name from the Tyrolese Minstrels (Rainer Family)--that German speaking quartet I just mentioned.Like them they were a four member group and wore funny costumes.One of the big differences however was their painted "black face" and use of musical instruments such as banjo and fiddle which often accompanied their singing.A very common way of singing the minstrel songs was singing solo on the verses, and doing four part harmony on the chorus (though minstrel tunes came in some different styles, some all instrumental).Another minstrel group by the name of the Harmoneons, published minstrel sheet music in 1843 for their version of "Nancy Paul" which is arranged for mens four part harmony.So this helps to show that black minstrel singers were singing four part harmony from their earliest days.

But did these early minstrel show singers make their own variation of already existing black barbershop harmony (from some Austrian/black American type of fushion)? Or did they simply borrow from the white Austrian related close harmony (often sung to folk tunes) and mix it up with the black American folk tunes of the plantation? There is evidence that the early white-black face minstrels may have done something closer to the later, with black Americans later putting their unique twist on these creations.For example as early as 1844 The Congo Minstrels advertised that "their songs are sung in Harmony in the style of the Hutchinson Family" (the all white American quartet that imitated the Raimers).

I'm not so shure that the barbershop form began the way I thought it did.Did it begin with blacks imitating whites or whites imitating blacks? Is it always related to the minstrel show? Certainly there were black close harmony groups that had nothing to do with minstrel shows--an early example being the Lucas Family in the 1840's (their first public appearence by atleast 1848).But the Lucas group though they were black doesn't appear to be that influenced by black music if at all, and included all instrumental numbers in their repertoire (I'll have to research more on this group to see if this is true, right now they appear to have done some non barbershop-very white type of close harmony).At any rate, both German/Austrians, white and black Americans greatly contributed to the form.And apparently the first association this music had with barbershops was black owned barbershops.

That's all for now.