SG History 101 - Mar 05
This month, I’d like to examine the contributions of African-Americans
to the heritage of southern gospel music.
Cleavant Derricks
In the years following the Civil War, as the United States struggled to
re-integrate its’ Southern states back into its’ cultural fabric, gospel
singing in both black and white communities developed along similar
paths. As shape-note singing spread among whites in the South, so it did
with many blacks as well, though economic factors and literacy
differences tended to impede the development of songbooks among blacks
in a comparable manner to that of whites. Nevertheless, the development
of the call-and-response singing tradition among blacks enabled the
development of their gospel music to keep at a comparable pace with that
of their white neighbors in the South.
By the 1930s, both white and black gospel traditions developed along
commercial channels, making them accessible to urban centers in all
parts of the country. But instead of radio, where white gospel singing
dominated, the black gospel artists became popular through recordings,
since inexpensive phonographs enabled blacks to gain access to their
favorite artists in a way radio could not, and radio catered more to
the affluent white markets.
Still, there was some intermingling, even then. In the decade before
World War II, a black Baptist minister from Tennessee named
Cleavant
Derricks wrote songs for the
Stamps-Baxter Music Company. His music
showed a definite shape-note influence, and became popular in the
convention songbooks of the period. Derricks wrote many songs that
became gospel quartet standards, the best known of which were “
Just A
Little Talk With Jesus”, “
We’ll Soon Be Done With Troubles and Trials”,
and “
When God Dips His Love In My Heart”. His songs were quite popular
among white convention audiences, who most likely were unaware of the
author’s racial origins.
Golden Gate Quartet
As the relationship between white quartets and shape-note publishing
companies weakened, ties between black and white gospel increased. White
quartets who admired the vocal ability of their black counterparts and
who were in need of new material, began to appropriate black songs and
arrangements through records, radio programs, and concerts. And a lot of
white singers were very familiar with the work of such black groups as
the
Dixie Hummingbirds, the
Five Blind Boys, the
Nightingales, the
Fairfield Four, the
Harmonizing Four, and the
Golden Gate Quartet. And
by 1953, the
Blackwood Brothers had recorded spirituals such as
“
Rolling, Riding, Rocking”, “
Swing Down Chariot”, and “
Rock-A-My Soul”,
and were performing them in their concerts. In fact, in the case of the
Blackwoods’ use of the Golden Gate Quartet’s “Swing Down Chariot” and
the
Statesmen’s adaptation of the
Gospel Harmonettes’ “
Get Away Jordan”,
there was actual cooperation between black and white groups. Both black
and white groups were consciously borrowing songs and styles from each
other.
The Golden Gate Quartet placed an indelible stamp on white gospel
quartets and their fans. They were an extremely versatile group that
could not only sing spirituals in a captivating style which included
syncopated rhythms, but they were also adept at impersonating sound
effects such as automobile engines, train whistles, and boat motors and
incorporating them into their material. They sang in a smooth, a
cappella style, often described as “jubilee” which appealed to white as
well as black audiences, and became quite popular by the 1940s. They
travelled extensively across the nation at that time, and were even
paired with groups like the Blackwoods and Statesmen in concerts in the
South. James Blackwood remembered those associations fondly, despite also
having to endure awkward moments when stopping at roadside cafes in the
South, and seeing the Gates refused service because of their skin color.
Despite the enforcement of the existing “Jim Crow” regulations,
audiences were quite accepting of the Gates’ music, as they appeared
often alongside white quartets throughout the early 1950s. Perhaps
predictably, though, the southern furor over the landmark Brown vs.
Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954 put an end to the
Golden Gate Quartet’s appearances there with white quartets, and it
would be almost two decades before another black gospel group would find
that kind of appeal with white audiences.
Teddy Huffam
That group was
Teddy Huffam and the Gems, from Richmond, Virginia.
Huffam was a talented stylist and pianist who surrounded himself with a
group of young black singers in a unique mix that combined traditional
black singing with white arrangements. The group’s recording of the
Eldridge Fox song “
Gone” hit the top of the Singing News Top Forty chart
in 1979 and remained in the top twenty there for the next three years,
making it one of the biggest southern gospel hits ever.
Huffam’s success paved the way for several other black artists in the
southern gospel marketplace, such as Charles Johnson and the Revivers in
the 1980s and 1990s, whose success inspired other artists such as Don
DeGrate and Strong Tower from Charlotte, NC, the Gospel Enforcers from
Morganton, NC, and the Reggie Saddler Family from Yale, NC. Such groups
provide an important minority presence within the southerno gospel
industry as the 21st century unfolds.
Despite their audiences remaining predominantly white, the very
acceptance of them on stage stands as not only a hopeful sign of
southern gospel’s reaching out to a broader evangelical coalition, but
as recognition of the fact that good music knows no color distinctions,
and that black and white alike are a part of the rich musical mosaic
that is gospel music.
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Written: 02/28/2005 
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Category:
SG History 101
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