The Origins of Gospel Music - Essay Example

Gospel music tended towards the soulful and sorrowful, expressing a longing for spiritual comfort (Boyer, 36-37). With time, gospel music gradually evolved, branching out into three distinct categories, these being bluegrass gospel, mountain music, traditional black gospel, and traditional southern gospel. Internal divisions and distinctions, lending to the variety detectable in this genre, have significantly contributed to the survival of Gospel music over the centuries and allowed it to maintain its status as a positive music tradition in this country.

Bluegrass gospel music is probably the oldest of the three categories of the gospel and, according to music scholars, maintains the genre’s original transcendence of race and persuasion (Phillips, 167-68). Primarily relying on instruments such as the guitar, the fiddle, the banjo, and the mandolin and reminiscent of country music, bluegrass gospel is expressive of the American spirit itself, not to mention the nation’s collective heritage. It is both spiritual and secular, sung in churches and clubs and sung by both black and white performers (168). Indeed, as Phillips contends, bluegrass gospel is a quintessentially American genre and the ancestor of other uniquely American musical genres, whether country and western, soul and blues, or hillbilly and Old-Time music. While musically tended towards the upbeat, accompanying lyrics are invariably emotional, expressing a sincerity of feelings and human longings which audiences, irrespective of gender, race, or religious persuasion, can identify and empathize with (Phillips, 169-70). Therefore, insofar as this category of gospel music is concerned, it can most accurately be defined as a traditional American musical genre that expresses both secular and spiritual concerns and emotions.

Traditional black gospel music differs from bluegrass gospel in that it was born of the African-American experience and is inextricably linked to this particular race. As Louis Charles Harvey writes, “one of the fastest growing musical expressions in the black religious community is black gospel music. Since the Depression era, black gospel music has occupied an increasingly important position in the religious life of the black community” (19). Some historians have traced the roots of black gospel music to the slavery period, maintaining that it evolved during communal prayers for two reasons. The first was the need of the slaves to nativize the religion that had been enforced upon them by their captors and masters; by their determination to make Christianity their own. From this determination and need, arose the black gospel musical tradition; prayer in the form of spiritual song and dance. The second force impelling the evolution of the black gospel was the very nature of the circumstances of the black race in America. Their enslavement and misery influenced a liberation of spirit and emotions through songs that appealed to God (Harvey, 21-23). Accordingly, black gospel music evolved from the experiences of the black race in America and as that experience was, historically, sorrowful and unjust, is primarily spiritual, taking the form of appeals for salvation.

Insofar as Southern gospel music is concerned, often the most overlooked of the three, it is linked to the white Southern race in America and tells of their experiences. Insisting on a clear demarcation between Southern and black gospel, Goff states that even though they are both native to the south, the one is Evangelical, carries a predominantly biblical-based message, and evolved out of the desire of Southern traveling ministers to spread the word of God, while the other is exclusively black and limited to the narration and expression of the black experience. The traditional Southern gospel does not subscribe to any particular musical rhythm but, as Goff explains, occupies a large range of musical styles and tunes, from the spiritual to the popular secular and from the solo baritone to the choral and multi-part harmony. Its defining feature, and what establishes it as a distinct category of gospel music, is the nature and content of its message. As stated, the message is wholly religious and its content expresses the Southern Evangelical experience and spiritual sentiment (Geoff). Consequently, as may be determined from the stated, of all the categories of gospel music, Southern gospel is that which is almost exclusively religious.

As is evident from the preceding discussion, gospel music is a vital and vibrant musical genre, solidly rooted in the history and experiences of this country and its diverse people and races. Divisible into three categories, each of the gospel’s three sub-genres has maintained its popular appeal across the decades for one simple reason. That is, apart from being a positive music tradition, they tell of the experiences of the people of this land and express those experiences with simplicity and authenticity of emotions which elicits the empathy of listeners.