African American Sacred Music and Black Hymnody

Singing High

The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199982295.013.20 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 34-51

Author(s):

Alisha Lola Jones

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Sacred Music ◽

Art Music ◽

Cultural Performance ◽

Dual Processes ◽

Live Performance ◽

African American Churches ◽

Western Art ◽

American Churches

Drawing on a case study of African American countertenor Patrick Dailey and an ethnography of his live performance, this chapter is an ethnomusicological assessment of his social and theological navigation of gendered vocal sound. African American gospel singing challenges the binary gender framework that the American public expects, with men singing low and women singing high. As a man who sings high, Dailey has to demonstrate performance competence in African American worship. Dailey deftly negotiates the tensions and intersections between these dual processes of musical performance. He does so with an aspiration to deliver a presentation that is what he refers to as “anointed”: music that is from and for God. Dailey’s performance also engages African American audiences’ various types of cultural familiarity to portray competency as a worship leader and trained artist. Thus, while making a mark in sacred music history, more generally, Patrick Dailey’s performance reveals the subtle ways Western art music conventions of classifying vocalists are utilized and revised in the interpretation of cross-cultural performance in African American churches.

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Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions (review)

Southern Cultures ◽

10.1353/scu.1998.0047 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 118-118

Author(s):

Gavin James Campbell

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Sacred Music

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Got On My Traveling Shoes

10.5406/illinois/9780252039102.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Robert M. Marovich

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Sacred Music ◽

Great Migration ◽

Southern Culture ◽

Protestant Churches ◽

Promised Land ◽

Congregational Singing ◽

The Great Migration ◽

Women And Children ◽

Black Sacred Music

This chapter examines the role played by the Great Migration in the development of black sacred music in Chicago. Starting around 1916, thousands of black men, women, and children landed on Chicago's shores as part of the Great Migration, also known as the Great Northern Drive. Regardless of the way migrants traveled, Chicago was the destination of choice, the Promised Land. This chapter first discusses the sources of the new African American migrants' disillusionments in Chicago, including unemployment and substandard housing, before turning to early congregational singing in sanctified services and in storefront churches. It then considers the rise of African American Protestant churches as well as the migrants' creation of their own “islands of southern culture.” It also compares northern and southern worship practices among African American churches and concludes with an overview of the proliferation of storefront and sanctified churches in Chicago, along with sanctified worship in Spiritual churches and their influence on gospel music.

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Banjos and Ballads

The Last Battleground ◽

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469649566.003.0012 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 71-78

Author(s):

Philip Gerard

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

New Orleans ◽

Sacred Music ◽

Camp Meetings ◽

At Home

America in 1860 is enjoying a spirited musical age, and the men who march off to war take their music with them: fiddles banjos, guitars, mouth harps, strong voices. The Confederacy no longer recognizes US. Copyright, so best-selling songs like “Old Folks at Home” by Stephen Foster are pirated by presses in Charleston and New Orleans. “Dixie’s Land,” written by Daniel Decatur Emmett based on a tune he heard played by two African American brothers (Ben and Lew Snowden) becomes the anthem of the Confederacy. Music is played to soothe the grief of loved ones at home. Sacred music enlivens camp meetings. The slave cabins on the line reverberate with their own spirituals about liberation from bondage, and the USCT are remarkable for their singing. The best-selling song of all time is “When This Cruel War Is Over,” (a.k.a. “Weeping Sad and Lonely”). Its fatalistic lyrics are so demoralizing that many commanders in both armies ban it.

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Sweeping through the City

10.5406/illinois/9780252039102.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Robert M. Marovich

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Sacred Music ◽

Gospel Music ◽

The Political ◽

Baptist Church ◽

New Members ◽

African American Churches ◽

Black Sacred Music ◽

The City ◽

American Churches

This chapter examines the contributions of Thomas A. Dorsey and the gospel nexus to the development of gospel music in Chicago during the years 1932–1933. Pilgrim Baptist Church is often cited as the birthplace of gospel music because Dorsey served as its music director. However, it was actually Ebenezer Baptist Church that provided the creative spark that propelled gospel to the forefront of black sacred music. This chapter first discusses the political infighting endured by Ebenezer over two turbulent years before turning to its gospel programs, along with the establishment of the Ebenezer Gospel Chorus and the Pilgrim Gospel Chorus. It then considers the roles played by Dorsey, Theodore R. Frye, and Magnolia Lewis Butts in the advancement of the gospel chorus movement in Chicago; how gospel choruses became a means for African American churches to attract new members and more revenue; and Dorsey's composition of the gospel song “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” The chapter concludes with a look at the Martin and Frye Quartette, renamed the Roberta Martin Singers.

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Sacred Music in Transition

10.5406/illinois/9780252039102.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Robert M. Marovich

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Sacred Music ◽

Radio Station ◽

Historical Background ◽

Radio Broadcasting

This chapter examines Chicago sacred music in a period of transition, focusing on the roles played by Charles Henry Pace and the Pace Jubilee Singers. The Pace Jubilee Singers are a fascinating example of African American sacred music in transition. They were among Chicago's first black religious artists to perform on radio, broadcasting during the 1920s and early 1930s over radio station WCBN and megawatt stations WLS and WGN. The group was also among the first mixed jubilee ensembles to feature a female soloist prominently in the person of Hattie Parker. This chapter first provides a historical background on Pace and his formation of the Pace Jubilee Singers before discussing the group's recordings, including sessions with Victor Records, and Parker's contribution to the group. It also considers the Pace Jubilee Singers' radio appearances following the end of their recording career, as well as the careers of Parker and Pace after the group's disbandment. Pace continued writing and publishing sacred music, including gospel songs, in Pittsburgh. He died on December 16, 1963.

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7. Hybrid sounds

The American South ◽

10.1093/actrade/9780199943517.003.0008 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 100-113

Author(s):

Charles Reagan Wilson

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

American South ◽

Sacred Music ◽

American Music ◽

Southern Culture ◽

African American Music ◽

Southern Music ◽

The American South ◽

Minstrel Shows ◽

Musical Genres

‘Hybrid sounds’ highlights southern music. The first association of music with the American South came from the presence of African American slaves. The pre-Civil War blackface minstrel shows displayed southern connections in its imagery of the plantation. After emancipation, African Americans gained employment in such groups as the Georgia Minstrels, as they moved to New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis, where they adopted the trumpet, the piano, and other instruments that soon became familiar in the music of black southerners. Sacred music, blues music, jazz, and folk music were all important musical genres which shaped Southern culture and the importance of the commercialization of African American music played a role.

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Wade in the Water

Resonance ◽

10.1525/res.2020.1.1.15 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 15-24

Author(s):

Sonja D. Williams

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Cultural Context ◽

Sacred Music ◽

Smithsonian Institution ◽

Series Production ◽

National Public Radio ◽

The Social ◽

Long Form ◽

Black Sacred Music ◽

First Time

In January 1994, Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music, a first-time radio series collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and National Public Radio, began airing on hundreds of NPR affiliate stations throughout America. An ambitious and influential series of 26 hour-long documentary programs, Wade explored 200 years of black sacred music, including spirituals, ring shouts, lined hymns, jazz, and gospel. The series also featured the insights of music creators, performers, listeners, and historians who could place African American sacred music traditions within the social, political, and cultural context of their times. Wade eventually won a Peabody Award and other awards of distinction. Conceived and hosted by Smithsonian Institution curator, artist, and MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellow Bernice Johnson Reagon, Wade required an intensive, five-year-long fundraising, research, and production journey of commitment. As the series’ associate producer, this article’s author worked with a host of dedicated radio producers, researchers, engineers, scholars, and music collectors who helped to make Wade a reality. Therefore, this article describes the series’ production journey from the vantage point of an insider, and it serves as a personal reflection on the making of a series that would set the standard for future long-form, NPR-based music documentary productions.

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