SG History 101

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This month marks the third anniversary of my writing the monthly history articles for Southern Gospel News, and in commemoration, I thought I would depart for one month from the normal format of spotlighting an artist or a timely topic.

To be honest, part of the reason for doing so is an acute case of writer’s block. I just couldn’t decide on an artist to feature this month, and the best ideas I had were short-circuited by the lack of time and resources needed in a pinch to do them justice.

So, instead, I opted this month to do an essay-like piece devoted to a question raised periodically during the course of the time I’ve been writing these articles. And that is: Why is learning about the history of southern-styled gospel music so important? Can’t fans of the genre just enjoy the music without having to know about its’ past history? Why might we enjoy the music better if we learned about its' past?

I’ll begin with the middle question. Of course it is possible to enjoy gospel music without knowing anything about its’ past. After all, we enjoy the songs of our youth without necessarily knowing of their origins, either musical or merely historical. And I have never operated from an “elitist” point of view which states that one must enjoy music for the same reasons I do, if for no other reason because I know that is impossible (or at least highly unlikely).

Now on to the other two questions. For one thing, most basically, I write about gospel music history because, as has been demonstrated from the six years or so that SG History 101 has been a feature here at Southern Gospel News, there are a lot of readers here who are interested in it. So if I didn’t do it (and I have been asked to do so), there would be a large number of our readers who would not be served. And that is not good. It is, to use a phrase from the vernacular, “no way to run a railroad”.

OK, so it serves the public. But why be interested? What does a fan of gospel music gain from knowing its history?

For one thing, the kind of gospel music that originated in the Southeast United States and was rooted in the shape note singing tradition of the white rural churches there, and which gained its initial visibility and recognition as a commercial enterprise is among the most fundamental forms of music that originated in this country…right alongside the blues, jazz, and country music. As such, it deserves to be studied, examined, and recognized. However, unlike those other forms of music I mentioned, there is a dearth of material to read about it. Even with the relative increase of such material in recent years, it is often very difficult for a fan of this music to read and learn about it. One thing I hope to do with these articles is to make this historical material more available to examine, and to entertain and enlighten those who wish to read about it.

Another reason I think it is important to learn about gospel music history is that an important part of understanding anything is to understand its’ history, where it came from, and how it developed. Consider, if one wishes to understand another person better, it is helpful to understand that person’s background, experiences, and upbringing. Those factors help enable one to understand the person in question better fundamentally. As the early psychologist William James is quoted as saying, “We are all the sum total of our experiences up to this very moment.”

Gospel music(or all music)is the same way. If we want to understand better the music that, say, Bill Gaither makes, we need to understand what influenced him to make the music he has. This goes for any other artist. No one has burst upon this planet, not influenced by anything, and created an entirely new kind of gospel music. Everything came from somewhere. And by studying the histories of the various artists who have made the gospel music we love so much today, we see where artists such as the Chuck Wagon Gang, the Statesmen, the Blackwood Brothers, the Happy Goodmans, and right up to artists of today such as the Perrys, the Gaither Vocal Band, Ernie Haase and Signature Sound, and Gold City made the music that they made. By so understanding the history of our music, we get to “know” all these artists and more much better.

One other reason to look back at our past is to learn from it. Now the artists and events of the past have taught us valuable lessons about how good gospel music to to be made, and popularized. The approach to the making of gospel music by such trailblazers as Dwight Brock and the early Stamps Quartet, Lee Roy Abernathy, Connor Hall and the Homeland Harmony Quartet, Hovie Lister and the Statesmen, the Couriers, and the Imperials and Oak Ridge Boys of the 1960s and 1970s are all useful lessons today for anyone either currently making gospel music or contemplating it as a career or calling. Their stories need to be shared and learned to appreciate fully the gospel music we know and love today.

Similarly, the mistakes of our predecessors can be useful to us as well in learning how NOT to go about trying to make a career in gospel music. This too can be a teaching tool for those interested in why gospel music has not reached a bigger mass audience than it has, or for those wanting to learn what to avoid when undertaking a career in gospel music. And
although I would say that the indiscretions in the stories of such well-known gospel artists such as Calvin Newton, Michael English, and Kirk Talley ought to be examined, they should NOT be analyzed to merely “dig up dirt”, but to learn lessons from so that such stories don’t recur in the lives of future prospective gospel artists.

Finally, on a positive note, the history of gospel music ought to be studied and discussed because of the many inspiring and positive stories of the people who gave it to us. People like G.T. (Dad) Speer, Jim Waites, JD Sumner, James Blackwood, Jake Hess, and Bill Gaither went through a number of personal obstacles and a lot of sacrifice in order to create the conditions and situations many of us take for granted in this day and age to help bring the gospel music industry to be where it is today, and these stories are worth telling again and again, from a human standpoint, as well as to inspire and encourage those who read or hear them to do things in the same spirit as those people did. These are great stories, and deserve to be told (and re-told).

In short, we examine gospel music history because it HAS a great history…as a fundamental American musical art form, as a tool in carrying out the Great Commission, as a career for those gifted in making it(and/or those called to use it as a form of Christian witness), as examples of life lessons that need to be learned, and as good human stories of achievement, to inspire and to motivate interested readers to higher things.

And mostly, because it is great music, and its story needs to be told!

And don’t worry, in the coming months, more of those stories will be told, and more of the heroes and architects of this music will be spotlighted.

Reader Comments

Sometimes I get tired of hearing MYSELF talk about my favorite groups from "back in the day" but SG is, almost by definition, a genre of music that looks backward to the greats of the past. I'm grateful for the chance I had as a teenager to hang out with members of the Statesmen, the Blackwood Brothers, the Stamps, the Thrasher Brothers and more.

Twenty years from now, middle aged people of that era will reminisce about Signature Sound, the Perrys,Greater Vision, Sunday Edition, the Cerces and others. That's the fun of SG. You can even "name drop" the lesser lights of days gone by like Jerry and the Singing Goffs, or Fay Sims and the Scenicland Boys and someone, somewhere, will get all misty eyed.

You gotta know your history, or else, someday at NQC some starry eyed young girl will see a Cathedrals album cover and she'll exclaim, "Like, wow! I didn't know that Ernie was in a quartet before Signature Sound!!! And also, like, is Ryan Seaton REALLY Ryan Seacrest's brother? And did you ever notice how much Derrick Boyd looks like that Gary dude from Rascall Flatts?"

Chris J. Becker
Cedar Rapids, IA

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