"Which came first, Gospel or the Blues . . .Hmmmmmm?" Gospel, by decades. The expression "gospel songs" was in wide use in the 1870s, and predates the 1870s. The black folk songs with the word "blues" in their lyrics can be traced back to about 1907. There were very similar songs to those blues songs, without the word "blues" ever in them as far as we know, in the 1890s, such as "Got No More Home Than A Dog." I've never seen anyone make a reasonable argument that we have evidence that those types of 1890s songs (in turn) already existed as of say 1885. Perhaps they did, but the evidence we have of 1870s-1880s black folk music is pretty extensive (although less so than of the 1890s), and that evidence doesn't support the idea that they did.