The Story of Gospel Music - Documentary

[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the gospel by its very nature is the good news that's it comes from a Greek word UN Gallion which means the good news and the gospel is the good news and the good news is that God sent Jesus in the into the world to save sinners it's such a testimony to me coming off the street drug dealer 15 years ago actually getting delivered and being able to express myself now musically more than good news I can take it personal and say it's my news something just comes over you as as we sing these songs daily we get closer and closer together and it's not by the by virtue of our characters it's by virtue of the spirituals themselves do you know what I think is the common denominator of gospel music love l.o.v.e love and I think it comes across and love is healing love is binding ladies and gentlemen the amazing love of God expressed in the queen of gospel tramaine Hawkins [Applause] great ah [Laughter] [Music] like [Applause] well Amazing Grace is probably the most famous hymn in America it was written by a person who was himself involved in the slave trade and it was written during one of the slave trade crossings it got into America it started getting into print it became popular doing some of the great revivals it became unlike a lot of gospel songs it became popular both in black and white traditions that's great [Music] at all my fee and grace my fear The Amazing Race was written by former slave ship captain it is an instance of how black people's spiritual and musical genius borrowed from what was introduced to them and then made it their own it was difficult for us to sing naturally within the print oriented strictures of the European hymn foam so what we did we improvised we stretched out the signature introduce the syncopation and the rhythm [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] although the song is equally popular with both audiences the verse that is most favored by white audiences is a nebulous vision of heaven when we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the Sun however the verse that has become as somebody said virtually the Negro national anthem is among gospel audiences is the verse through many dangers toils and snares I have already come there are two basic strains of gospel music basically the african-american and the anglo-american the Anglo American we think came from the dissenting churches in England during the 17th and 18th centuries we have all kinds of references for example to people complaining about the sound that was coming out of some of the soca what we today would call Protestant churches churches that were not affiliated with the Church of England their music apparently was very strange and very unusual and the entire congregation sang which was something kind of odd for the Church of England and then on the other hand you have the music that was obviously brought over from West Africa during the slave trade what we're doing basically is teaching African heritage African culture a sense of building and acknowledging our culture within the children who we call the children that are the byproducts of American slavery hey Bawa we won we won it ain't well there used to be one telephone sometimes there used to be Oh condos you losing about there we won me where we used to go around singing Ospreys we had a whole group along with me but now that the Holy Ghost economy that's what I love about my mother the songs we sang we got the history of the song and Ankle me one was a slave song that song was written way back when a gentleman was a slave he was brought over and his family was on the next ship coming and they all died and we caught up with the captain I was up that ship slave ship coming in he said my family was on this ship and I don't see any of them and they gave then it was numbers and what have you was markers and they did or tribes and they didn't have names yet - he was boy so he said well what tribe and you tell him - tribuite on the number whatever was could have been he said oh all of them died on the way over and that's when that song popped out and bought me one it was only him left he said then it's just me now there was a fear that some how to hold a fellow question and bondage was illegal and a number of colonial legislatures very quickly passed legislation that said baptizing a slave does not change the slaves status the Virginia assembly in 1664 decreed that it was indeed possible for Africans to be both enslaved and Christians so following that there was a conversion of Africans to Christianity this entailed religious instruction and instruction in religious music praise God from whom all blessings flow the congregation they would sing praise God from whom all blessings flow the leader praise him all Christians here below the congregation praise Him that's not what the black people did as a matter of fact they say that they don't lie in a hymn they raise a hymn now we have letters from the Society for the propagation of the gospel written in 1755 describing this and what they actually did was a person who were later on becomes a deacon sings two lines in a rather ornamented fashion and then the congregation brings in all of the curlicues and flowers that the Africans tend to decorate their songs with so that inner watts him like come he that love the Lord the Deacon would sing Kum Kee that love the Lord and let you draw or be known then the congregation begins call me oh well you're not gonna get anything like that out of the Presbyterian Church a slave's when we were carried away from Africa did not leave their religion or music behind when you listen to the spirituals when you listen very carefully confined rhythmic patterns that are very significant related to African music when you listen to the harmonies very simple harmonies you'll find a lot of that in African music because most people in Africa do not know how to write music but I can harmonize [Music] [Music] when the stars began to hear the Christian shout - leave me [Music] looking to my god right [Music] [Music] [Music] in the African religion remember they had to be the music they had to be the preacher and there had to be the you know the congregation you see and that's where the whole form of the music come from call in response those particularly blues and gospel you have a call and response which goes way back to ancient agrarian society but as a religious term it is the preacher and the response and whether you could be listening to Michael Jackson you still hear the same they have a baby baby [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] musically our music has always been free we've been free to express it rhythmically free to express it harm harmonically that freedom was somehow taken away from us by missionaries who attempt to bring Christianity to us and in bringing in the deliverance of Christianity pulled out that which they considered to be unfit for our musical expression the whole emotional aspect of the African culture and religion was thought of as quote childish from the beginning you understand what I mean and but they found out other things that altered that somewhat for instance why they took the drum away they found that - the drum you know they weren't just beaten on that wood that they were actually you know communicating with each other and usually after they beat on that wood a little while the way the term rap actually comes from and they got to rapping on that wood then all kinds of things would happen you know I mean you know the storehouse might burn up slaves would run off somebody would give poison so very quickly they had to take that drum away from the slaves which then made the slaves all the music that they made is like percussive without the drum gradually even as early as the eighteen hundred's this enthusiasm begins to affect right congregations as a matter of fact in the 1800 revival we began to see an exchange of singing between the slaves and the white two Methodists and Baptists and Presbyterians and this was the cause for an 1819 book by John fan and Watson called the Methodist era where he chastises them for singing like those songs that were first composed in the colored community he calls it not only were they frightened because it was new they were frightened because it was different and they were slightly angry because something that was so important to them something that was so necessary to their own expression had been come from had come from a group that really oughtn't have had the sense to create this and to bring it many of the slaves were convinced that the people who claimed to be Christians who were slave masters could only be one of the other they couldn't be both they would either have to be slave masters or they would be Christians so they discounted their Christianity in fact Douglass says the worst of all the slave masters with the religious ones because they would whip you but didn't go pray it off you know I'm sorry I whip this but Lord you understand what I mean so the slaves early made that distinction between you know everybody talking about heaven ain't going there you see that's what they saying you know they never believed they were Christian because they would say how can you be believing God and do this to me we were taught that God did not favor the black man God favoured the European we didn't believe it and we expressed that disbelief in the music so we said Pass me not o gentle Savior hear my humble cry while on others in other words while you in the big house as we were told that you were gonna go do not pass me by [Applause] Hey [Music] [Applause] and Wow Oh [Music] don't pass me by and a lot of those those songs that come out of the church are really meant to communicate a whole social life of the slaves that is more or less obscure to the Masters [Music] throughout the 18th century there was always that desire to go back but by the 19th century most of the slaves were native-born they were American born the majority of slaves were out in the field and they would go out into what was called brush Arbor now this is where trees grow up and cross each other like this and you have this pathway under and it controls the sound so that they could get out there and sing and play this was called the invisible church the Margaret Walker in her book Jubilee has a very interesting tale about a slave teacher who because he had learned to read and write see that's what that was the danger that for the slave master since he could read or write he could write himself passes and he would go from one plantation to another and each plantation thought that he was owned by the other plantation but actually they were holding church services also it served as a form of communication it was like the newspaper not only would you get communion with the Almighty but reports on what was happening and particularly 19th century as the whole intensification of the struggle against slavery the home appearance of abolitionist black and white white commander of a black regiment during the Civil War has written marvelous location of the scene of the spiritual Spy the black troops particularly around the campsite at night and how moving he found this music which he also found to be strange and filled with a kind of of pathos that was unlike any music that he had heard before [Music] the slaves actually thought that this that this was created by God you know the civil war and that they were his people and they were going to be delivered that's why they thought and maybe also why they got tricked and to believe in that they were free after the Civil War [Music] [Music] masterji [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] during the time of the civil war and immediately after the Civil War most Americans had never heard black music and when they did they were stunned at how different and how effective and how powerful it was and the fish Jubilee singers were responsible for creating much of that the school was designed for the mulatos of those children of the slave owners they were the bastard children and the blacks didn't accept them neither did the whites the fathers of these children wanted their black babies educated so Fisk was one of the schools one of the many that was developed in the South that they could send their children but they didn't have the finances to maintain the children after they left school in many instances and while they were there they needed support so they're singing touring throughout the world was how they raised money to save that school and to keep that school alive the Jubilee singers went to Europe to sing before Queen Victoria and she was so impressed with the Jubilee singers that she summoned her court artists to paint the picture that we see behind us is the the portrait the original Jubilee singers a lot of times they were turned away from hotels whenever they wanted to go and if they tried to board a train sometimes they were not allowed to board the trains or either they had to sit in segregated places so they had to put up with a lot of the segregation and the racism that was going on during that time the human spirit is a combination of passion and intellect and the frontier religion of early America in the 18th and 19th century was as vibrant and is enthusiastic as our worship is today but in the Age of Enlightenment which was imported into the Americas and became the age of reason in the middle of 19th century the practice of religion became a mind trip and Rob the expression of religion in the majority community of its enthusiasm and I think probably out of its activity and that's why the white church unfortunately went along with slavery went along with segregation went along with lynching there was some great confusion at one time in the United States that if black people acted more like white people they would be accepted more by white people of course that was totally wrong but for a long time this is what they practice so that you attempted to sing without emotion you attempted to sing without the dialect you attempted to sing the same songs that they were singing at First Baptist Church downtown the Pentecostal movement emerges out of an earth like the earlier movement called the holiness movement which takes place in the late 19th century and the holiness movement was a movement that stressed an experiential religion suggesting critically that Baptists and Methodists and other evangelicals had perhaps grown a little cold grown a little bit formal they needed to stress the old-time religion here meaning experience and particularly the experience of baptism with the spirit with all the gifts that come with that baptism one of the early songs was a song which the leader would sing I'm a soldier and the congregation would say in the army of the law the leader would come back I'm a soldier the congregation in the Army now these songs were for shouting because with this new kind of love speaking in tongues they needed something joyous and they'd sing I'm a soldier soldier in the army I'm sanctified sanctified soldier in the heart well you can see right away that this is going to be pretty infectious you don't really have to be a great solace in order to get to solve the crime totally what am I say to you I have a mother who can see Jesus keeping the other plus God knows my mother's not a great singer but when she sings as she sings with what we call big gospel music feeling as well as there is a mistaken notion abroad today when people hear the musical idiom of gospel there's an overemphasis on the rhythm and the beat the rhythm and the beat is secondary what has made gospel live authentic gospel is the message that the rhythm and beat carry it's so important when you begin to minister please listen to me musicians and choir members it's very important to understand that when you sing a gospel song which is our heritage we must be able to what pass it on and the only way you can pass information on it's two ways that's verbalizing it or writing it if you're going to verbalize it it must be articulated in a way that what people can understand okay now you sound good I just don't hear ya I don't understand you can you try once again position can y'all bring the music music down okay stay it rapidly on there ready okay then start again please one two solo go [Music] [Applause] back in the first decade of this century the organ was even suspicious in some churches but it's clear for example Pentecostal people say if you don't think that we're supposed to have instruments go look at Psalm 150 [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] preacher the congregation the music and finally the frenzy that is getting happy getting emotionally removed from one's normal self that's part of the religion it's not just something on the side you know is it that's part of the religion you know old people used to say they would leave a church say there people don't believe in God they stood up dear quiet they no say nothing you know they dad didn't actually believe that they were religious people unless they got emotional they didn't believe that they could sit and listen to somebody speak and that somehow just that imparting of that information constitute as a religious experience the the afro-american in bad shape here in North America where is dominated by Europeans who do not believe that who believe that's a savage display and has nothing to do with religion outlaw dance outlaw you know drum outlaw Seifer so then there was nothing they could do but repress that and for the middle class or will you say the house and it grows with middle class they would do that they would do that they would strip all the African isms because to them that represented a de botched kind of a status in the first place but for the majority of people they didn't care nothing about that they knew they couldn't embrace a God you couldn't embrace the creator unless you actually got in it you know and the music was the way you raised that intensity you raised the intensity today you're still gonna see those African isms and the thing about a mint witches you know the emotionalism the singing the dancing the playing of drums the playing of instruments you know you know they always have two or three people whose job it is to run around and catch people once they get happy and start jumping up at now falling out all over Florida's people who are supposed to hold him and restrain them so they won't hurt themselves you know it is the music and the drumming which induces the possession of the Spirit and so in a much milder way and limited way that happens when we shout or get happy in our worship services and the genius of black people is that we have never let the influence of the West rob us of our enthusiasm in our worship I think what has made white Christianity so sterile is that somehow they bought into the business that to be emotional is to be unintellectual and which is simply not true Oh have done for you [Applause] sacrifice get out of your seat Apple to come down near holy ground and on the count of three I need to see 100 people move as quick as you can what sit [Music] [Music] what now [Music] how many of you know what primitive petunia isn't leaving come again you've got to go wha-hey [Music] where people moved to cities either in the south or in the north they discovered that their musical needs with wood required in the context of worship a new music something that addressed their struggles and their hardships at that time in those places the challenges that they met in the city is factory workers we're quite different from those that they experienced their sharecroppers by 1921 now the National Baptist Convention the largest organization of Christians in the United States decides to accept gospel on a certain level I'll illustrate the difference in a minute and they publish in 1921 a book called gospel pearls the first book that was published by black people to use the term gospel which meant a style of music and a style of singing gospel pearls included four very important people Charles Albert endly Charles price Jones Thomas Andrew Dorsey and Lucie Eddie Campbell all of whom were extremely important in that they were composers of this music and we normally look at someone like Charles Albert ender who was born in 1851 and by 1905 tenly is writing songs that are sort of borrowing some of the elements of this Pentecostalism they are not Pentecostal but they have this direct colloquial almost back fence kind of language the song that IRA lustrated was this song was written by him in 1905 when the storms of life are raging Lord stand by me now that's a phrase when the storms of life are raging stand by me that's the kind of statement that the average person would make one of his best-known compositions I'll overcome was adapted modified and actually domesticated in the civil rights anthem we shall overcome by domesticated I mean tinleigh wrote if in my life I do not yield I'll overcome some day which is a good deal more aggressive than deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome some day I think it was a particularly bright man because he was able to capture the thoughts of these disenfranchised first-generation up North black people he has two perhaps three heirs but the two heirs here specifically are Thomas a Dorsey and Reverend W Herbert Brewster both men patent themselves in tindley and both started composing religious song sometime around 1920 Thomas Dorsey was basically a blues singer he called himself Georgia Tom and for most of the 1920s he made quite a bit of money by singing off color blues then suddenly he experienced as many people do sort of an epiphany a revelation he lost a lot of money suddenly he took that as some kind of sign and he began to turn his considerable songwriting talents to gospel music sighs oh yeah that children was just about to cross that's 20 time push your first know what asking you if you will do me a favor kindly take this message to the other side you saw we affectionately referred to him as The Godfather of gospel because he sophisticated the call-and-response technique which came by the oral tradition from West Africa and he introduced the so called jazz Cadence's and rhythms of popular music into the gospel idiom what he did when he created the form we know as gospel he put the music of faith into the common idiom of the people it was in the colloquial expression with which people were familiar and it was born in a period of deep economic depression in America when Lester Grange of the Urban League said that black America almost had a nervous breakdown things were so bad in Norfolk Virginia in 1928-29 80% of the adult population were on relief and black men was standing on corners trying to sell their services for a dollar day white matrons fired their maids in senem home and they had to wring their hands over dishwater singing Amazing Grace so is really the essence of gospel music that kept the frail hopes of the black community alive in our churches [Music] the own name [Music] look bad [Music] since I can sometimes gambling sometimes so time not only did he write great songs but he also tended to figure out new ways to market and merchandise the songs he was the first one for example come up with the idea of really pushing and selling and merchandising gospel songs on sheet music he was the first person to go out and really push his songs the way a modern popular song plugger would do he told me several stories of I'm a real meaningless by ministers one was he would publish his songs on little song sheets and he would go to churches and he'd asked for an opportunity to sing one of them or one of his songs stirs or demonstrators as they were call would sing them and then he could sell his song sheets or tell people to come to his door he said he went to one Church in the minister said I want you to sit on the front row and I will give you a chance to sing one of your songs Dorsett said that the man looked at him then dismissed of the congregation without letting him sing a song he'd lost a Sunday morning the other times they would say take that old jazz and music out of here and don't Blues up our things so you see Dawson had to organize a gospel choir convention so that he could put this program on himself he just hit a little white bag in the drawer and he just dropped the dimes in there oh so I could see keeping up with nothing I said you got something yet but you just don't know what to do it but I addressed you to do an article and who lives today so it was mine to travel around and wherever I'd go I'd carry the music sing the song seldom music after the service was over and that's the way mr. Dores his business would bill sally was a great singer but her business acumen was greater than her singing but the young woman who was born in night teenee Levin in New Orleans Louisiana Mahalia Jackson came to Chicago when she was 16 years old and even though she'd performed with the Johnson Brothers she eventually became daus's demonstrator and and they traveled together for 14 years Dorsey would write the songs and teach them to mahalia they travel all over the United States singing these songs and of course eventually mahalia became the woman responsible for introducing gospel to the wider world [Music] faithful each day let me walk you I'm telling telling this word larval stages when we are and I'm reading your bath [Music] Oh face haha let me walk [Music] I'm jealous get it but lord what a savior and I'm ready [Music] well my hey you're not only saying that way she lived the life they tried to get her to sing at the Apollo Theater here and she wouldn't go they offered her a hundred thousand dollars to sing in Las Vegas she wouldn't go Duke Ellington wanted her to record his come Sunday and she said I don't sing jazz they said well this is a sacred song well I don't sing with Duke Ellington she eventually recorded with Duke Ellen you know how she did it he went to her house and said mahalia will you cook for me that she loved and during the course of the evening naturally he worked his way in [Music] love God Almighty [Music] [Music] please and see [Music] gospel has many great talents me hey was the top shelf but she's not alone on the top shelf people like Marion Williams was at a Tharp Clare award etc deserve a place exactly with her but me hey had the good fortune of linking up with W Herbert Brewster and although she hadn't had any luck with her recordings of Dorsey songs her recording a Brewster's move on up little higher was one of the first super hits and this alerted the the major record companies to the potential of black gospel sales as a result she became the embodiment of gospel [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] [Music] but more cheering at me good [Music] for the first time we had black songwriters we had to Thomas Dorsey the Charleston Lee the Lucy Campbell's into w Herbert Brewster's coming on the scene for the first time so now we had somebody who could actually write the music that was heard and then we had the traveling ensembles that were going around the country whether they were Roberto Martin singers or my god communism all day the cortege genre had been flourishing since the late 1890s and in the beginning it was quite formal with a tremendous emphasis on articulation enunciation and harmony not too different from barbershop quartet harmony it became more relaxed and freer and more a reflection of the gospel style also you got to keep in mind here the 20s what was happening around the country was that African Americans were very concerned about literacy this is when they began to read music you were considered to be much more educated when you could read the music and know the songs that you were getting and not just going strictly by Road in oral so we saw this taking place this change taking place in terms of African American music and the music began to spread and terms of the church conventions and what-have-you musicians would go and introduce new songs and and and and and churches began to adopt new song traditions and as a result of that the music began to spread a very particular and appealing form of religious music was now flourishing the Golden Gate Jubilee quartet an acapella quartet who managed to sing both religious and secular songs with unparalleled charm and virtuosity became an important popular act they appeared at the White House they did national radio broadcasts Sister Rosetta Tharpe who represented the sanctified tradition she came from the Pentecostal denomination the Church of God in Christ she introduced the virtuosic guitar showmen Lee and extremely stylized vocalist genre to the world I get music in that up above my head I am music in the end Oh onion music in yeah oh yeah I really do believe I really do believe there's a heaven somewhere just a tarp was the first megastar in gospel by the mid forties she was packing in 30,000 people she was born in 1915 in cotton plant Arkansas her mother was a sanctified missionary and little Rosetta by the age of four was playing a guitar Rosetta learned to play the guitar from blues and jazz singers and that stuck with her not only did she like the way they played the guitar she liked the music that they sang now her mother was sanctified so her mother wanted her to sing gospel music and Rosetta would sing gospel music but her ear was always over there too the great blues guitarist and the jazz guitarist because that's what she played and she would let that music seep in so that this month she was singing gospel and next month she'd be at the Cotton Club [Music] that knows not nor beep are you trash [Applause] [Music] and see your mega before debut [Music] [Music] she wavered back and forth like this so and she was a member of the Church of God in Christ a large Pentecostal church sometimes they puts us to type out of the church for singing blues and then she would come back in and apologize and they would let her in and then a big engagement would come up again and she would go out and sing that the Church considers blues and jazz absolutely foreboding you'll go to hell if you sing that kind of music so that you must only saying religious music and they see that as a symbol of life itself Satan pulling you on one side and Christ pulling you on the other so that she was the first superstar but she was also the most controversial [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] actually her going back and forth keeping her in a pretty awful stead so that when she died it was not like the death of st. Mahalia Jackson where the gospel singers all came in and felt somehow responsible to this great woman Rosetta Tharpe had a rather modest funeral and almost passed a notice and that was because she couldn't seem to make a decision while people like Aretha Franklin Sam Cooke Lou Rawls Johnny Taylor Della Reese once they went out they stayed out in that field now two interesting things happen Sam cooked attempted to sing with the soul stirrers again and he was not quite as accepted because they felt he'd back slid Aretha Franklin however is unusual because Aretha has made two extremely successful gospel recordings since she's been a soul singer and gospel music love gospel musicians and music people love her just as much so they've kind of forgiven her freshest take my [Music] need [Music] and let me stay [Music] [Music] the question that was raised when gospel was performed first at the Newport Jazz Festival was whether this was an appropriate context for gospel music given the fact that it was secular and that jazz had always carried the stigma of immorality in various dimensions with it but the answer to the question was that one should reach out for the sinners one should reach out to new converts and that this was one way of achieving [Applause] rather than passively we would like for you to enjoy this service you can your hand holler at the girls you do that immediately Janice that's what we're representing religion deception [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Wow [Music] after the war after World War two you have dozens of independent record companies coming to the fore you have dozens of local grassroots radio stations coming to the fore and they give this music a good hearing and as a result of this what happens is it becomes possible for many of the performers of gospel music to make a living at it it was rough okay it was rough because it was in the late fifties and early sixties there were certain places that we could not go into to eat or drink we could not stay in certain hotels places like the Holiday Inn the Hilton's oh no we had to stay in a lot of them are just like sleazebag places [Music] [Music] I speak from experience I know what it is to be out there singing get to a city can't find a decent place to sleep because I'm trying to carry this gospel of Jesus Christ I've known times and I've gotten there the lights went out all we couldn't find the promoter I've been to times in my ministry when while I was singing the promoter skipped with the money and I'm out there with all of my group members looking to me for living with a big bus and all of that we know all about that but in spite of all of that costs music is big business and it's big enough that our young people need not look toward R&B or anything else gospel music can take care of anybody if you hear a preacher like Shirley Caesar testifies she is always bringing matters home she's always talking about the problems of her audience their inability to meet bills the danger of crime and drugs and the street the problem of AIDS in the community and I've also described gospel as kind of a cosmic blues because it's the only form that deals with some of no gloomy and melancholy experiences [Music] [Applause] [Music] let every man know long let them know that any of the same is brother be power of the kulluk whiskey and then while you're talking [Music] [Music] if you listen to what black people are singing religiously it is a clue as to what is happening to them sociologically our music mirrors not only theology upon which our faith is grounded but it also gives a clue as to what is happening to us there's always been a civil rights component to gospel music it was evident in the 1940s when the Golden Gate quartet sang there will be no segregation in heaven and there's also always a strong element of black pride particularly in the compositions of Reverend Brewster Brewster was more alert to the political implications of gospel than any other composer when he wrote move on up little higher which was the great hit for mahalia or surely God is able which was the great hit for Marion Williams and the ward singers he meant these songs to be political metaphors he was encouraging his parishioners he was encouraging the people who followed the music to go out into the world politically he was always politically engaged and his church services were integrated as early as the late 1940s in fact Elvis Presley was one of many white Memphians who would attend his church haiya Jackson was very friendly with Martin Luther King she helped bring King to Chicago in the early 60s at the great march on Washington Mejias sang Reverend Brewster's testimony my soul looks back and wonder how I got over and next to Kings I had a dream it was the most transcendent moment of the March it was a time when all the political implications of gospel were made manifest [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I think Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland contributed more than any to single personality to what I would say legitimizing the gospel a phenomena in the majority community James Cleveland is called the crowned prince of gospel and I see James Cleveland as the heir apparent to Dorsey he he imitated everything that Dorsey did for example Dorsey played the piano Dorsey sang he organized choirs he composed songs he organized a gospel music choir convention James Cleveland organized the gospel music workshop of America in 1967 and I must admit that he is the one who is responsible for the present craze of gospel music listen the Lord has done so much for me [Music] he's offered all so penny time ah can't even see [Music] he always gives me yah Lane gives me victory and that's why I love it flow it's in Baja Colin yes after there [Music] for perhaps 30 years he was the biggest selling artist and gospel music and he followed every shift as the music if the music became closer to rock and roll to pop music Cleveland was and was in the vanguard and yet as I said he had immediate access to the oldest sounds he could work with a quartet he could work with a soloist he could work of a group he could work with a choir he understood the whole genre peace be still that song was my beginning and it was written by the late James Reverend James Cleveland and that song actually was written from the Bible this Bible story that tells about Jesus asking them to come and go with him over to the other side and they had to get on a ship and when they got on his ship there was a storm that broke out of course always when I sing it which you would probably see that I demonstrated just like I was their master [Music] it is raging Oh church is permitting the beauty I see [Music] cause somebody news12 and unique piece tonight sky ears I'm just gonna demonstrate just to show you lay down to sleep I said I care can you get up see them up that way [Music] [Music] [Applause] when you're dealing with folks that have traditional mindsets with concern and gospel music they don't allow any leeway for going outside of those through those boundary lines I find with those that are not Church with those executives that are not Church that they tend to have a broader scope on what to do with the gospel music or try different things that are outside the traditional norm now a fabulous thing happened in the pop music world a little while ago an American Inquirer recorded a Negro spiritual and which went straight to the top of the charts in America and on this side of the Atlantic he had probably know the song oh happy day I'm delighted to say that visiting the country at the moment and this is the first appearance in this country and I'm delighted to say that it's on my show ladies in general I'd like you to meet the Edwin Hawkins singers [Music] indeed [Music] d Jesus when you in Jesus see though what they did was they changed the face of gospel music for their time 2016 they made it more urban more mainstream now to listen to oh happy day the children of this day the gospel listeners of this day consider that traditional music when when I was growing up that music wasn't allowed to be played in the church and even in our homes they wouldn't allow us to play because it sound too world yes yes Oh [Music] well I don't have any brief to file against the commercialisation I'm glad to know that gospel singers can make a decent living now I do think that they need to be disciplined enough not to sell it I mean by that the music form of gospel is centered in the personal and collective faith in a man named Jesus Christ if it weren't for that reality there wouldn't be any such phenomena as gospel music a big record company and I will not call their name but they came out of New York some years ago and they knew my life they knew about my mom at that time she was a semi invalid and they said that we can give you enough money that we can put her in in a hospital she can get the very best of medical care all you have to do is sign they said you have soul like none of the others I said this is the Holy Ghost I said brothers not soul I said but yes we're not asking you to give up your religious beliefs we just want you to sing secular music I said I'm bought with the price and I won't go on to taste something yes I can I can tell you I said the only way that I'll do it if you let me rock for Jesus and roll for God about eight years ago on the 8th of this month eight years ago my sister la rushing from Memphis Tennessee stood by the bedside of my mom how security she was British we should then watch or take a last breath and the best ring that I had with blood in their body had just left me laying right there young folk if you're privileged tonight to have a good mother I don't care she's an alcoholic she's still your mom [Music] and whether your mom respect you or not you got to always respect your mother always let me share the song with you cuz I'll say I feel a dance working on me already and it doesn't take me long to get oh oh Berkeley louder to move about it she [Music] [Music] in the past 25 years perhaps since 1969 gospel music has received a new thrusts a new direction in the sense the contemporary gospel scene has arrived this has been a music that has been driven primarily by the Church of God in Christ it has been the music where majority of African Americans are getting their influence from beautiful was the Baptist now it's the Church of God in Christ this music has grown in all kind of direction it has made us new artists new groups gospel choirs are becoming very popular instrumental gospel music is becoming very popular it is the music that is really just electrifying in African Americans in the African American community in the United States [Music] halleluyah halleluyah the young Christians in black church life did not leave and the certification of that is there black churches do not go out of business see if young people left then the churches would die but black you you tell me the last time you heard of a black church going out of business we defy the laws of mathematics we multiply by dividing [Music] [Applause] here's my giddy [Music] is my painting [Music] here's my fasting am I wasting my time and the Wawa I shall I mean I of course not it's not but it takes a special strength it takes a special anointing it takes special courage to be different it takes special courage to say no to Brooks everybody on your block is slow if it's 31 seconds another young lady is getting pregnant 80 percent of them will drop out of school and 70 percent of them will have to go on the welfare rules this is a problem this is around how to do your over half of our teenagers that become pregnant will have to have an abortion and over five thousand teenagers of here that will commit suicide this is serious so as you can see how youth are in a great danger and there is a great pressure to conform rough neighborhood is full of them drug infested their projects surrounding this area you hear gun shops going on all the Sun one Tuesday I came to church and I was going to get on my car I hear this gunshot and the guy was coming on my side gran behind my car shot this side of me I just ducked I just ducked they ran on down the street I came inside the territory inside her so it's rough this area is really worth Sunday means a day that I set aside and I just come into the church and I thank God for just even allowing me to get through the week we have a problem in our nation and everybody wants to address it and I believe in feel that the answer is Jesus and my way of getting that answer across to these babies is to captivate them for a moment and get their attention and what better way than this music that's so exciting and and I listen to all armies are gonna find that everybody's still in these chords and these runs and these intervals come from the church so I think it belongs to us so not only are we taking it back but we've been given the opportunity to share it again with these young people and you got to hear me it's working [Applause] [Applause] [Music] Oh about that say father [Applause] [Music] the music of the african-american religious experience has been the primary cohesive element that has bound black life together in the midst of the difficult obstacles that is face racism segregation lynching you name it and had it not been for the cohesive character of our african-american sacred music and for the sake of discussion secular music I don't think black people could have made it on a North American continent it has been the primary ingredient which has bonded us together as a surviving people ah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: misssharid

Views: 93,525

Rating: 4.8658538 out of 5

Keywords: Gospel Music

Id: b4shLXsf5ZM

Length: 89min 10sec (5350 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 22 2019