The Modern Urban Revivalism Era, 1930-80
Publications of the Modern Urban Revivalism, Era, 1930-80
Settings and Media of the Modern Urban Revivalism Era, 1930-80
Gospel Music and the Popular Commercial Tradition
Early Performance Styles
Performance Styles in the 20th Century
The Carter Family
Performance Styles and Strains of White and Black Gospel





Introduction: White Gospel Music

Gospel music. A large body of American religious song with texts that reflect aspects of the personal religious experience of Protestant evangelical groups, both white and black.

Such songs first appeared in religious revivals during the 1850s but they are more closely associated with the urban revivalism that arose in the last third of the 19th century. Gospel music has gained a place in the hymnals of most American Protestants and, through missionary activity, has spread to churches on every continent.

By the middle of the 20th century it had also become a distinct category of popular song, independent of religious association, with its own supporting publishing and recording firms, and performers appearing in concerts.

Although earlier uses of the terms "gospel hymn" and "gospel song" can be found, their use in referring to this body of song can be traced to:
* P. P. Bliss's Gospel Songs (1874) and
* Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (1875) by Bliss and Ira D. Sankey.

[There is a body of music known as Black Gospel Music and another body of music known as White Gospel Music. The following material focuses on White Gospel Music.]


Gospel Hymnody and American Revivalism
Gospel hymnody may be viewed as the culmination of various musical, social, and religious developments of the 19th century. It was foreshadowed in such collections as:
* The Christian Lyre (1831),

a compilation containing spirituals, traditional hymn tunes and texts, and newly composed religious poems set to popular melodies from both Europe and the USA, in a melange that is a compromise between the exuberance of the camp-meeting spiritual and the more "respectable" hymn style of composers like:
* Lowell Mason and
* Thomas Hastings.

They in turn were influenced by the emerging popular hymn tradition:
* Mason's "Harwell" (1840, to the text "Hark, ten thousand harps and voices"),
for example, has I-IVV harmonies, frequent dotted rhythms, and a recurrent refrain.

Gospel hymnody also drew ideas from popular secular song, such as that of the Civil War era.

George F. Root, composer of popular Civil War songs, also composed sacred music in the gospel hymn idiom: his:
* Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching in fact provided the music for
* Jesus loves the little children, a Sunday-school hymn still in use.

Another influence upon gospel hymnody was the rise of evangelistic singers.

Philip Phillips, perhaps the first such singer to receive international acclaim, appeared in several thousand "services of sacred song" from the late 1860s, including an extensive tour described in his:
* Song Pilgrimage Around and Throughout the World (1882).

The appearance of gospel hymnody was thus more the culmination of earlier developments than the appearance of a new idiom.