SG History 101

SG History 101 - Gospel music is many things

Gospel music is many things.

To students of culture, it is one of America’s most interesting phenomena. To students of theology and things of a religious nature, it is an important part of the nature of worship among Christians. And finally, to its most ardent fans, it is simultaneously a source of entertainment, comfort, and inspiration.

But like the religion it represents, it is and has always been an indelible part of American popular culture….a part of the fabric that is known to most all Americans, however much they appreciate or don’t appreciate it.

Thus, as a part of American popular culture, we intend this month to examine just how big a part of it gospel music has been.

To begin, music of a religious nature has been around as long as the country…even longer, to be accurate. Hymns have been around since the Renaissance and the age of famous classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach…who incidentally, may have been one of the world’s earliest professional gospel musicians, composing many of his works for the church.

And when immigrants from far and wide came to what we now call the United States, naturally they brought their music and folkways with them, and that carried over into the religious life as well, with the music coming from the churches being the foundation for what would become known as gospel music.

Skipping ahead quite a bit for the sake of brevity, when music became a commercial industry and began to be marketed through sound recordings, it was only natural that gospel music would be included, as pervasive as Christian music was as a part of American culture.

In fact, gospel music recordings were among the earliest made. 1927 saw the Frank Stamps All-Star Quartet cut some sides for the Victor label, and it became the goal for a lot of gospel singers to become successful as recording artists. In those early days, however, due to the difficult economic times, records weren’t yet feasible for many gospel artists, and a quicker way to a livable income was success via radio exposure and affiliation with songbook companies and the sales of such items.

All that would change dramatically come the end of World War II. Suddenly, the growing affluence of the population and the growth of the record industry overall made recording a key to financial success for gospel artists. Labels such as Sacred, Bibletone, and White Church arose in the 1940s for Christian artists, and one suddenly prominent gospel group, the Chuck Wagon Gang, began recording with Columbia, one of the biggest record labels in the country.

For those groups still in search of that big recording contract, they either hooked up with the Christian labels, such as White Church (the Rangers, the Blackwood Brothers, and the Homeland Harmony Quartet), Bibletone (the LeFevres, the Blue Ridge Quartet, and the Rebels), Bullet (the Speer Family, the Happy Goodman Family), or they pressed their own (again, the Blackwood Brothers).

But soon, it became apparent that some gospel music had commercial appeal. The Homeland Harmony Quartet’s recording of Lee Roy Abernathy’s “Everybody’s Gonna Have A Wonderful Time Up There” for White Church in 1948 was probably the first real “hit” in gospel music, selling some 200,000+ copies, which for a small religious label was quite a feat. The infectious song was a hit a decade later for pop singer Pat Boone, reaching a top chart position of #10 in the country.

And even pop icon Frank Sinatra recorded “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” for Columbia in the mid 1940s…further illustrating that the best gospel music indeed had commercial appeal to the public.

By the 1950s, in fact, one popular trend at that time was to sing songs of a religious nature. In 1951, country singer “Red” Foley (later Boone’s father-in-law) even used a gospel quartet (the Sunshine Boys) to back him up on his huge hit recording of “Peace In The Valley”, and Bill Kenny, tenor with the popular Ink Spots quartet, had a hit on the charts lasting 22 weeks with his rendition of Stuart Hamblen’s “It Is No Secret (What God Can Do)”.

The appeal of gospel songs became a goldmine for several artists during the 1950s. “Crying In The Chapel” was a big hit for three artists in 1953…pop singer June Valli, country singer Rex Allen, and an R&B vocal group, the Orioles. Elvis Presley took that song into the top 10 as well in 1965.

And the gospel styled hits kept coming in the 1950s. In 1954, Hamblen’s “This Ole House” was a pop hit for Rosemary Clooney (and used by the Statesmen Quartet to emerge victorious on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts that same year), and “Do Lord” was a hit for Della Reese and a group of singing Hollywood actresses called (cleverly) The Four Girls.

In 1955, “He” was a pop hit for Al Hibbler and the McGuire Sisters as well, Don Cornell scored with “The Bible Tells Me So”, and the aforemntioned Hamblen had a hit with another song of his, “Open Up Your Heart” (And Let The Sunshine In)”, which he recorded with his wife and daughters under the name “The Cowboy Sunday School Choir”.

In 1957, Elvis Presley recorded an EP of gospel songs(at his insistence), “Peace In The Valley”, and the title song was a minor hit for him. Presley would go on to record three full LPs of gospel music through the years (his most acclaimed work), as well as having a top ten hit in 1965 with “Chapel”, as earlier mentioned.

Also in 1957, pop singer Tony Fontane survived a near fatal auto accident, and recorded nothing but Christian music for the remainder of his career, recording for RCA and doing one album in the mid 1960s with the aforementioned Statesmen Quartet (who, like their rival, the Blackwood Brothers, also were recording for RCA by this time).

As I also mentioned, Pat Boone hit the top 10 with Abernathy’s “Wonderful Time Up There” in 1958, which was the last gospel song to be a major pop hit in the 1950s, but music industry people learned that there was always a large potential audience for a gospel song if it was good, and done well.

1960 saw the release of Presley’s first gospel LP, “His Hand In Mine”, which, like everything else Presley did in those days, became a big seller. The gospel hits stopped coming for a few years (interrupted by Presley’s 1965 hit “Crying In The Chapel”, a top 10 record, and on that LP as well), but they would return. Presley had another hit LP (and his lone Grammy winning record) with the 1967 release of his second gospel LP, “How Great Thou Art” (recorded with the Imperials gospel quartet, who featured HIS favorite singer, Jake Hess).

As the 1960s closed, Presley’s British counterpart, Cliff Richard, made a well-publicized conversion to Christianity, and Christian songs became hits for him in England along with his regular secular material. And at that time, the “Jesus Movement” was underway in California, which would help produce more Christian songs for the pop charts.

The first of those hits was 1967’s “Get Together” by the Youngbloods (and recorded subsequently by the Oak Ridge Boys and JD Sumner and the Stamps as well) and 1968’s “Are You Ready”, a pop hit for the group Pacific Gas and Electric Company..

But probably the biggest crossover gospel song to make the pop hit charts came in 1969…when Oakland’s Edwin Hawkins recorded “Oh, Happy Day” for Buddah Records. It not only was a huge pop hit, nearly every gospel music artist of the time recorded their own version of it…possibly a factor in the success of those songs was a reaction to the increasing secularization of American society at that time…which could be seen as hope for gospel artists of today.

Another successful gospel-type song around that time was Gene MacLellan’s 1971 song “Put Your Hand In The Hand” a top 10 hit for the rock group Ocean. Again, nearly every gospel artist recorded their own version of that hit as well.

The reaction in parts of the Christian community to those songs being recorded by gospel groups tended to be suspicious, for as successful as those songs were in helping those artists reach a younger audience, they were seen in some quarters as compromising the values and integrity of “their” music, so that newest trend of hit gospel songs on the pop charts lost its momentum, despite another spate of celebrity conversions to Christianity, such as was the case with artists like BJ Thomas, Dion, and Bob Dylan.

Those are but a few examples of the wide appeal of gospel music to American pop culture. I thought it appropriate to draw attention to it at this time, for one thing, it shows that gospel music produced in the right way can become as commercially successful as it can be personally satisfying.

For another, there seems to be a line of thought nowadays that the Christian tradition is not as integral a factor in American life as some would contend. To that, I offer this brief look back at how gospel songs captured the fancy of a lot of people over a long part of our history as an emphatic rebuttal to that school of thought.

For the Christian tradition is a major part of what defines the United States…and accordingly, gospel songs have always been a part of the cultural mosaic that makes up American society. And the secular artists who chose to partake of this part of our culture reflexively understand that good Christian music…and good gospel music…is a valid, cherished portion of the culture of America…and the success they had when recording it is proof of the worth of the music.

This little look back at Christian “hits” on our pop charts by no means pretends to be comprehensive, but I hope that it has been illuminating and instructive, and gets its’ readers curious as to examining this phenomenon in more detail in a myriad of writings.

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Reader Comments

   .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) ~ 12/03/2008

Good synopsis of the historical perspective of crossover music into the secular arena John. Well done.

Elizabeth
Chosing Christ Above Everything!!

   bludline ~ 12/06/2008

Good job, John.

The key is that the Lord can use a lot of things to show who he is, and sometimes even uses us....

the other thing I see is a lot of singers, mostly country, are singing songs that are not "gospel" but they are good songs about teaching your kids, and loving your spouse and staying the course. It is encouraging that people are starting to see that people want to see and hear positive things.... we ill do well to remember that too, and act and speak accordingly

   .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) ~ 12/13/2008

Interesting article, John. I remember, when I was a senior in high school, in 1960,one of the more popular songs was Ferlin Huskey's "On The Wings of a Dove".

Of course, at the time, I wasn't aware of how much I would come to love gospel music.

Keep giving us these great lessons on the history of gospel music.

   .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) ~ 12/17/2008

well done. "SG" just can't seem to pull of what Gospel music has done and can do. That success was back when Gospel Music was not in a box with a regional label.

   .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) ~ 01/08/2009

Was wondering just when Southern Gospel became famous....Enjoyed your article. Seems Southern Gospel is about to take a back burner to the new contemporary music...The early 90's brought a revival of SG through the Bill Gaither, home video's....now it is slipping, and contemporary is taking over...Time makes a change in all things. Still love the SG...and also some of the contemporary



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