Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Summer 2000
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 20, No. 3, Summer 2000, pp. 225-34.
Abstract
In this article, I document the introduction and development of gospel music within the African-American Christian community of Omaha, Nebraska. The 116 predominantly black congregations in Omaha represent twenty-five percent of the churches in a city where African-Americans comprise thirteen percent of the overall population.1 Within these institutions the gospel music genre has been and continues to be a dynamic reflection of African-American spiritual values and aesthetic sensibilities. By focusing the research on perceptions and descriptions provided by the music's practitioners, an examination of this genre at the local level will shed insight into the development and dissemination of gospel music on the broader national scale.
Following an introduction to the gospel genre, the character of sacred music in Omaha's African-American Christian institutions prior to the appearance of gospel will be examined. Next, the city's male quartet practice will be considered. Factors that facilitated the adoption of gospel by "mainstream" congregations during the 1930s and 1940s will then be addressed. In conclusion, the role of Salem Baptist Church as a focal point and instigator of musical change from the 1950s to the present will be described.
The accepted definition of the word "gospel," as found in the Oxford English Dictionary, reads, "'the glad tidings (of the Kingdom of God)' announced to the world by Jesus Christ. Hence, the body of religious doctrine taught by Christ and His apostles; the Christian revelation, religion or dispensation." This definition also describes the word as "short for gospel music [italics in the original]."2 Gospel music in the tradition of black Christianity, the subject of the effort at hand, has twice been given articulate and insightful definition by African- American scholar Pearl Williams-Jones, who wrote, "The term 'Afro-American gospel music' is used to refer to a particular body of contemporary black religious music which is the sum total of our past and present socioeconomic and cultural traditions. Afro-American gospel music is characterized by its use of texts of poetic imagery, poly-rhythms with strong emphasis upon syncopation, melodies based upon the traditional 'blues scales' (which consists of the lowered thirds, fifths, and sevenths) and European harmonies."3 She elaborated on the cultural ethos a few years later, saying, "Black gospel music, a synthesis of West African and Afro-American music, dance, poetry and drama, is a body of urban contemporary black religious music of rural folk origins which is a celebration of the Christian experience of salvation and hope. It is at the same time a declaration of black selfhood which is expressed through the very personal medium of music."4
Gospel music today is the latest stage in a musical continuum whose foundation was in place over one hundred years ago. The first African-American denomination was the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), officially chartered in Philadelphia in 1816.5 Its bishop, Richard Allen (1760-1831), had earlier compiled A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns Selected from Various Authors by Richard Allen, African Minister (1801), the first hymnal designed specifically for use by African- Americans.6 The formal worship service of early African-American Protestantism relied on, for the most part, the same repertoire used in the white Protestant church. The works of the English composer, Isaac Watts (1674- 1748), for example, were particularly well received, and to this day this body of hymns is simply referred to in the vernacular of the black church as the "Dr. Watts." The performance style was one of "lining-out," also called "surgesinging" or "long-meter," wherein a line of text is recited or sung by a leader and then sung in response by the congregation.7
Comments
Copyright 2000 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln