Possible search terms (not a filter search, but SuperSearch):

Dorsey
Davis
Blind Willie
Caesar
Tindley

I also have some material on my hard disk I nver posted because it involved a lot of bullet-cop and other HTML coding that was beyond me. It's a time-period by time-period overview, with styles and examples-- probably the definitive article on the topic, that you may be trying to create here but can't (because the people who could have contributed to the work for you, here, aren't here much anymore. It was based on a scholarly music dictionary/encyclopedia. I would need a committed clone helping to adjust the coding once posted, and quite a bit of time to extract it from my own archive. It's part of a larger project to answer a question asked and debated here long ago-- and that thread can be found, as well.

From the spirituals permathread there are links to these great threads, which will give you more SuperSearch search terms:

Did the blues spring from spirituals?
Blues Related to Spirituals.
Gary Davis Songs.
Your Favorite Gospel Blues.

And adding links to this thread, to those threads, would be a help to others looking for the same information later.

Another good resource is WFMU radio's weekly program, Sinner's Crossroads. Living history, every week. I've posted about it often, and Supersearch will find that for you as well.


This isn't Wikipedia and isn't trying to be-- it's an ongoing discussion that can be participated in even after years have gone by since the last comment. By finding and commenting in the older threads, Azizi, you honor our past and become part of it in the present-- that invitation is always open. And please remember, we try to index what is here and add to it, when we can, instead of splitting the existing discussions into even more fragments with new threads.

I'm not saying people should not or will not conribute to this thread-- of course that is their choice, as it is your choice whether to join existing discussions or to start new ones going over ground that already exists. But you have an opportunity to see a bigger result for the world's understanding by doing it the way it's usually done at Mudcat.

~Susan