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The Rise of Southern Gospel Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

James R. Goff Jr
James R. Goff Jr
Affiliation:
James R, Goff Jr. is associate professor of history at Appalachian State University.
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Extract

Hours before dark on a lazy summer afternoon in the mid-1990s, cars arrived in a long unbroken line that connected a rural two-lane highway to an unpaved parking lot. Seasonal thunderstorms and churning steel-belted radials combined to turn the meadow for overflow parking into a muddied mess. Still, some six thousand emerged from those vehicles and made their way toward a rustic fairgrounds stage. After displaying a ticket, they chose a spot, set up a few lawn chairs, and settled in for a long evening of entertainment and worship—making little to no distinction between the two. Each fan paid twelve dollars apiece to attend this gospel music event held just outside Boone, North Carolina, a small tourist community in the remote mountainous region of the state. All in all, few could complain about the price; the evening program featured five major groups, four with songs in Southern Gospel Music's Top 80 Hits monthly chart.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , December 1998 , pp. 722 - 744
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1998

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References

1. The Southern Gospel Top 80 Chart is compiled monthly by The Singing News Magazine (Boone, N.C.) and is published in both the regular publication issue and an industry piece called The Trade Review. It appears with the following annotation: “This report is only an indication of the overall amount of airplay each song receives, and is not intended to be interpreted as a determination of the ministries' merit or caliber” (Singing News 28 [1997]: 118–19Google Scholarand Trade Review 28 [1997]: 12–13). A similar monthly poll is conducted by other gospel music publications, including The Gospel Voice (Nashville, Term.), originally a creation of Music City News Publishing Company.Google Scholar

2. The concert described here was the thirteenth annual Gospel Singing Jubilee held at Boone's High Country Fairgrounds in August 1995. The town is also home to the Greenes, a successful southern gospel group; they host the annual jubilee, which draws fans from both the mountain and piedmont sections of the state as well as neighboring Virginia and Tennessee. This particular evening featured the Greenes; the Inspirations of Bryson City, N.C.; the McKameys of Clinton, Term.; the Kingsmen of Asheville, N.C.; and the Scotts of Franklin, Va. The Scotts were the concert's only black gospel group, though their style is decidedly a mixture of traditional white and black gospel.

3. On shape notes, see Chase, Gilbert, America's Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present, 3d ed., rev. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 170–91.Google Scholar The shape note historians have tended to overemphasize the significance of the Sacred Harp tradition; by far the greater influence on American music has been the seven-note system outside the restricted confines of Sacred Harp singing. The pioneering work on shape notes is Jackson, George Pullen, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933).Google Scholar

4. See Malone, Bill C., Southern Music, American Music (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1979), 67–69, 113–19;Google ScholarAyers, Edward L., The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 396–98;Google Scholarand Wolfe, Charles, “Gospel Music, White” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. Wilson, Charles Reagan and Ferris, William (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 1013–14Google Scholar. Also valuable, but limited in scope, are Brobston, Stanley H., “A Brief History of White Southern Gospel Music and a Study of Selected Amateur Family Gospel Singing Groups in Rural Georgia” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1977);Google Scholarand Montell, William Lynwood, Singing the Glory Down: Amateur Gospel Music in South Central Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991).Google ScholarMuch too broad in scope but with a good chronicling of the parameters of southern gospel is Cusic, Don,The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel Music (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990).Google ScholarSee Malone, Bill C., Country Music U.S.A., rev. ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), 424–25, and the excellent bibliographical essay, in which Malone calls for greater work in this area.Google Scholar

5. The best of these are Allen, Duane and Burt, Jesse, The History of Gospel Music (Nashville: Silverline Music, 1971);Google ScholarBlackwell, Lois S., The Wings of the Dove: The Story of Gospel Music in America (Norfolk, Va.: Donning, 1978);Google Scholarand Terrell, Bob, The Music Men: The Story of Professional Gospel Quartet Singing (Asheville, N.C.: by the author, 1990).Google Scholar

6. Interestingly enough, Kennedy appeared on the May 1984 cover of Singing News Magazine, though covers are distinctions usually reserved for gospel artists. Other evangelical ministers, including Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Jimmy Swaggart, have contributed columns to the publication over the years.

7. The best discussion of the varied definitions of “gospel music” is found in Crawford, David, “Gospel Songs in Court: From Rural Music to Urban Industry in the 1950s,” Journal of Popular Culture 11 (1977): 551–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSee also Horsley, A. D., “The Spatial Impact of White Gospel Quartets in the United States,” in The Sounds of People and Places: A Geography of American Folk and Popular Music, ed. Carney, George O., 3d ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994), 177–89.Google Scholar

8. The best source of information on Grant's career is Millard, Bob, Amy Grant (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1986).Google Scholar

9. Categorizing gospel music is at best an imprecise science. For most of the twentieth century, racial designations sufficed to indicate a number of stylistic differences despite the fact that white and black artists consistently defied the implied definitions by borrowing and mixing elements they learned from each other. Contemporary gospel as it emerged in the 1960s was the first truly integrated form of gospel and, predictably, it borrowed heavily from both of its ancestors to become by far the largest market for religious music. Nevertheless, more traditional white and black gospel artists often refused to be subsumed under the larger contemporary label, sometimes out of a concern for marketing liabilities and other times out of a genuine distaste for the larger variety of musical style.

10. Maurice Templeton (publisher and CEO of Singing News Magazine), interview by the author, Boone, N.C., 23 December 1997.

11. See Chase, , America's Music, 182. Bob Terrell, Music Men, 15Google Scholar, assumed that Vaughan actually attended the Ruebush-Kieffer Normal School in Dayton, Virginia, but evidence strongly suggests that his training occurred in his native Tennessee and in Texas, where Vaughan taught public school in the early 1890s. See Wolfe, Charles, “Introduction to the Vaughan Family Visitor Microfilm Collection” (Murfreesboro, Term.: Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University, 1988), reel 1, pages 3–5;Google Scholarand Vaughan, Stella B., “A Heritage to Keep: History of James D. Vaughan, Music Publisher” (1964; Cleveland, Term.: James D. Vaughan, Music Publisher, [1975?]).Google Scholar The Vaughan account, published in pamphlet form, may also be found in the opening pages of Vaughan's Family Visitor microfilm collection, reel 1. Accounts by Vaughan's youngest brother Charles are particularly valuable for piecing together details about the early music training. See “Retrospective Squibs,” Vaughan's Family Visitor 18 (1929): 9;Google Scholarand “History of the Vaughan Family,” Vaughan's Family Visitor 30 (1941): 23–24.Google Scholar

12. Vaughan's connections to Methodism ran deep; his uncle, Richard Vaughan, was a Methodist minister. Nevertheless, in the mid-1920s, Vaughan provided a considerable amount of support for the establishment of a Nazarene Church in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. One source relates that his disillusionment with Methodism stemmed, in part, from the local Methodist Church's refusal to use his songbooks in any of their religious services (Ottis Knippers, phone interview by the author, Lawrenceburg, Term., 20 February 1998). On the Nazarenes, see Mead, Frank S. and Hill, Samuel S., Handbook of Denominations in the United States, 10th ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 117–19.Google ScholarThe pioneering work on the Nazarenes is Timothy Smith, Called Unto Holiness (Kansas City, Mo.: Nazarene Publishing House, 1962).Google Scholar

13. On “All-Day Singings,” see Bill Malone's entry by that name in Wilson and Reagan, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, 1039–10.

14. “Southern Gospel Music: What Is It?” in Singing News Magazine and Southern Gospel Music Rate and Data Information (Boone, N.C.: Singing News Magazine, Inc., 1990),2.Google ScholarOn Vaughan and his influence, see Fleming, Jo Lee, “James D. Vaughan, Music Publisher” (S.M.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1972), especially 48–67. A short recounting of Vaughan's legacy is covered in Terrell, Music Men, 14–35.Google Scholar

15. Much of Vaughan's financial motive, at least in the short run, seems to have been tied to advertising his publishing business since the new technology, especially radio, was not a revenue-producing enterprise in the 1920s. Vaughan was ultimately forced to sell the station around 1930. See Swafford, Carl, ‘“Music City USA’: Could Lawrenceburg have Captured This Title?” Wayne County (Tennessee) News, 26 09 1975, 12;Google Scholarand Walbert, James D., “James D. Vaughan and the Vaughan School of Music,” Rejoice 2 (1990): 12–13.Google Scholar

16. Fleming, “Vaughan, Music Publisher,” 52–61.

17. The pioneering work on the Stamps-Baxter company is Shirley L. Beary, “The Stamps- Baxter Music and Printing Company: A Continuing American Tradition, 1926–1976” (D.M.A. diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1977).Google Scholar Other music publishers providing competition for Vaughan in the early twentieth century were A. J. Showalter of Dalton, Ga.; R. E. Winsett of Dayton, Term.; and Eugene Bartlett of Hartford, Ark. See Malone, Southern Music, American Music, 67–69.

18. On The Musical Million, see Paul M. Hall, “The Musical Million: A Study and Analysis of the Periodical Promoting Music Reading through Shape-Notes in North America from 1870 to 1914” (D.M.A. thesis, Catholic University of America, 1970).Google Scholar

19. Musical Visitor 4 (02 1915): 7; and 4 (March 1915): 1–3.Google Scholar

20. Terrell, Music Men, 36–48; and Blackwell, Wings of the Dove, 50–53. The Stamps-Baxter publication was issued sporadically as the Stamps-Baxter News from 1927 until 1934 when a permanent monthly, The Southern Music News, was formed. As the music company grew, its influence extended beyond the South and, as a result, the journal was renamed Gospel Music News in March 1940. See Ayres, J. I., “From Now On … Gospel Music News,” Gospel Music News 6 (1940): 2;Google Scholar and Beary, , “Stamps-Baxter Music and Publishing Company,” 236–49.Google Scholar

21. Both publications continued with their basic format into the 1960s and 1970s. Vaughan's Family Visitor was subsumed as a part of the short-lived Gospel Music Hi-lites after the company's purchase by Blackwood-Statesmen Enterprises in 1964; Gospel Music News survived until 1975 when, just a year after the company's purchase by Zondervan Publishing House, it was replaced by the Stamps-Baxter Newsletter.

22. On the contribution of family groups, see Terrell, Music Men, 64–75.

23. On the Chuck Wagon Gang, see Terrell, , The Chuck Wagon Gang—A Legend Lives On (Goodlettsville, Tenn.: R. Carter, 1990).Google Scholar

24. See Terrell, , Music Men, 99–108;Google Scholarand Wolfe, Charles K., “Blackwood Brothers,” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, 1045–46.Google Scholar

25. Terrell, , Music Men, 40.Google Scholar

26. Carter, Roy, interview by the author, Bedford, Texas, 29 July 1996. Also Terrell, Chuck Wagon Gang, 38–41;Google Scholar and Harden, Lydia Dixon, “Chuck Wagon Gang: New Blood, New Book, New Album,” Gospel Voice 3 (1990): 17.Google Scholar

27. For a couple of examples of the decision to shift to gospel only, see Terrell, Chuck Wagon Gang, 32–41; and Racine, Kree Jack, Above All: The Fascinating and True Story of the Lives and Careers of the Famous Blackwood Brothers (Memphis: Jarodoce Publications, 1967), 72–73.Google Scholar The distinction here is crucial because groups became identified fairly early as either a “gospel” group or a “secular” group that sometimes sang gospel songs. A modern example are the Statler Brothers, a country group whose roots are in gospel but whose career has been primarily as a country group (and a remarkably successful one) that sings a pretty good gospel song. Predictably, the Statlers' gospel recordings consist of standard gospel songs that were already favorites by the time the group recorded them; groups within the gospel music industry constantly experiment with new material.

28. For an excellent example of an early country performer who used gospel as a part of his act, see Wolfe, Charles, “Uncle Dave Macon: The Birth of Country Gospel,” Precious Memories (1989): 17–22.Google Scholar

29. On the importance of Nowlin and a handful of other promoters, see Terrell, , Music Men, 236–52.Google Scholar

30. On Fowler's influence, see Taylor, Dave, “Wally Fowler: Pioneer Promoter,” Gospel Singing World 1 (1996): 6–7, 10–11.Google Scholar Also Widner, Ellis and Carter, Walter, The Oak Ridge Boys: Our Story (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1987), 9–23.Google Scholar

31. Allen, and Burt, , History of Gospel Music, 54–55;Google Scholar and Anderson, Robert and North, Gail, Gospel Music Encyclopedia (New York: Sterling, 1979), 28–30.Google Scholar

32. Vaughan, Stella B., “Heritage to Keep,” 6–7.Google Scholar

33. Terrell, , Music Men, 161–65. Terrell credits Sumner with the genesis of the idea.Google Scholar

34. Allen, and Burt, , History of Gospel Music, 69–74.Google Scholar

35. Rambo, Buck and Terrell, Bob, The Legacy of Buck and Dottie Rambo (Nashville: Star Song Publishing, 1992), 100. For the entire account of the Rambos' success and the NQC decision to accept groups other than quartets, see 96–101.Google Scholar

36. “Blackwood Petition Growing,” Singing News 1 (1969): 1–2.Google Scholar

37. The term “southern gospel” as a description of this particular wing of the gospel music industry seems to have been solidly in place by the late 1970s. The earliest issues of Singing News did not use the term to mean anything other than gospel music in the South, that is, “southern” gospel. However, later issues placed greater significance on the term as an identifying mark; in reality, the fate of the term was sealed with the organization of the Southern Gospel Music Guild in 1986.

38. The building of a museum and hall of fame has been a dream of many within the industry since the founding of the GMA in 1964 and was at the root of at least part of the hostility between the conflicting segments that emerged in the 1980s. Regular appeals to fans within the southern gospel camp have indicated the rapid pace at which such an endeavor proceeds. See Kirksey, Jerry, “Singing News Library and Museum Needs Your Stuff,” Singing News 26 (1995): 10.Google Scholar

39. The Grand Ole Gospel Reunion premiered in 1988 and has been held in Greenville, South Carolina, each year since. The reunion features nightly concerts as well as daily activities that allow fans to interact directly with their favorite artists of years past. Charles Waller, interview by the author, Greenville, S.C., 10 June 1996.

40. Throughout most of their career, Bill and Gloria Gaither achieved fame as a talented songwriting team whose works circulated best in the new contemporary market. By the 1990s, however, they had shifted their efforts increasingly toward the southern gospel market. Sales of the first few volumes of the video series in the early 1990s topped 100,000 each and, by September 1996, total video sales had exceeded three million. Bill and Gloria Gaither, interview by the author, Louisville, Ky., 19 September 1996.

41. Kirksey, Jerry, “Watering Down the Message, It's Not Gospel Music,”Singing News 26 (1995): 10.Google Scholar

42. Kirksey, , “Watering Down,” 10.Google Scholar

43. Lois Gail Sypolt, lyricist, “Cry for the Children,” on Cry for the Children, The Inspirations, Inspirations, Inc., 1993. Lyrics reprinted by permission of Tuckaseigee Publishing Co., A Division of Inspirations, Inc., Bryson City, N.C. The popularity of the song is indicated by the fact that the lyrics were printed on a 1994 handout card and sold for $1 at the Inspirations' record booth as late as 1996.

44. Jerry Thompson, lyricist and composer, “We've Got to Get America Back to God,” on A Promised Reunion, The Nelons, Benson Music Group, 1994. Lyrics reprinted by permission of Rex Nelon Music, Smyrna, Ga. The promotion of the right-to-life movement and other conservative issues continued with the highly successful song “We Want America Back,” on We Want America Back, The Steeles, Daywind Music Group, 1996. Jeff R. Steele, lyricist and composer, Christian Taylor Music, 1996; lyrics published in Singing News 27 (1997): 74. The song received recognition as the top-rated song of 1997 on the Singing News charts.Google Scholar

45. In a 1950s radio broadcast, James Blackwood introduced a brand-new song that the Blackwoods had added to their repertoire from listening to the Dixie Hummingbirds. To his credit, he was not ashamed publicly to give the Hummingbirds their due (radio broadcast tape, Singing News library, Boone, N.C). The interaction is also confirmed by interviews with surviving white artists themselves (Hovie Lister, interview by the author, Alexandria, Ind., 2 April 1996; and James Blackwood, interview by the author, Anderson, Ind., 3 April 1996).

46. The collaboration of Andrus and Terry Blackwood, a member of the celebrated gospel family from rural Mississippi, created the innovative sound of the Imperials in the early 1970s. By 1977, Andrus and Blackwood had moved on to form ABC (Andrus, Blackwood and Co.), a distinctly “contemporary Christian” group. See “Armond Morales and the Imperials: The First 27 Years,” Rejoice! 4 (1992): 18–20;Google Scholar and Anderson and North, Gospel Music Encyclopedia, 22–23. Lois Blackwell, Wings of the Dove, notes that Andrae Crouch was the first black artist “to cross the color lines in gospel music” (98).

47. Don Cusic's interview with Jim Murray, tenor for the Imperials in the 1970s, revealed that the group lost bookings as a result of the Andrus hiring (Cusic, Sound of Light, 194). In my interview with Terry Blackwood, the former Imperial downplayed the controversy, remembering that “the white audience went out of their way to be accepting of Sherman” and noting that, musically, the group was already moving away from the traditional southern gospel audience. Nevertheless, he admitted “there were some in the industry … and some of the audience who weren't real happy with it” (Terry Blackwood, interview by the author, Alexandria, Ind., 3 April 1996).

48. Johnson, was formerly with the Nightingales, a popular black gospel group from the 1950s and 1960s, and is, in fact, the “unidentified member” from the photo in Heilbut's, TonyThe Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1975), photos between 44 and 45. Johnson admits that his success in southern gospel has come from a conscious effort on his part to blend what he considers the best of white and black gospel styles (Charles Johnson, interview by the author, Nashville, Term., 28 September 1992).Google Scholar On the success of the Scotts, see the (Nashville, Tenn.) Gospel Voice 8 (1995): 10.Google Scholar

49. The move of some black artists into the southern gospel fold is, no doubt, a result of the weakening market for traditional black gospel. Once much stronger than the white market, the black network has seen steady decline since the 1960s. The most important factor in the shift is undoubtedly the growth of contemporary Christian music, which has appealed to a largely integrated audience since its inception in the late 1960s (Jerry Kirksey [editor-in-chief, Singing News Magazine], interview by the author, Boone, N.C., 10 August 1995; and Charles Johnson, a second interview by the author, Durham, N.C., August 12, 1996).

50. Kirksey, interview.

51. Kirksey, interview.

52. Paikowski, Lisa, “American Christian Market is Potential Advertiser's Paradise,” Singing News Magazine and Southern Gospel Music Rate and Data Information, 5.Google Scholar

53. In my interviews with southern gospel artists, I have been struck by the degree to which younger performers almost invariably refer to their music as “a ministry” while older artists (especially those with some experience prior to the late 1960s) are much more willing to recognize up front that their music is entertainment.

54. On Winsett, Buffum, and Ellis, see Burgess, Stanley M. and McGee, Gary B., eds., Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1988), 101, 260–61, 889.Google Scholar

55. On the relative importance of gospel music within Pentecostalism and of Tennessee Music and Printing Company in gospel publications, see Burgess and McGee, Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 688–95. See also Alford, Dean L., Music in the Pentecostal Church (Cleveland, Tenn.: Pathway, 1967).Google Scholar

56. See Tucker, Stephen R., “Pentecostalism and Popular Culture in the South: A Study of Four Musicians,” Journal of Popular Culture 16 (1982): 68–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Malone, , Southern Music, American Music, 77.Google Scholar

57. “Singing News Reader Survey: Denominational Analysis,” May 1990, records of Singing News Magazine, Singing News offices, Boone, N.C. An outside consultant conducted the survey. Denominations with roots in the Holiness Movement (Christian and Missionary Alliance, Church of the Nazarene, Wesleyan Methodist, and Holiness) add an additional 6 percent to those with roots in the turn-of-the-century Holiness-Pentecostal revival. Even allowing for some statistical variance among the 1,231 readers surveyed, the strength of the connection is impressive.

58. Fifty-six percent of readers were female; 62 percent were in an age bracket ranging from 21 to 51. United States census figures from 1990 confirmed that only 45 percent of the total population fell into that same age bracket, meaning southern gospel promoters claimed an even larger than expected share of such a market. Similarly, over 74 percent of respondents in the 1990 survey owned their own homes, a figure 10 percent higher than the national average. With reference to families, 54 percent of those surveyed had children between the ages of 6 and 17. Respondents were quite evenly divided between those who lived “inside city limits,” in the “suburbs,” and in the “country” (U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States 1994 [Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994], 20; and “The Singing News Demographic Survey,” May 1990, office records, Singing News offices, Boone, N.C.).

59. Roughly 68 percent reported a high school education only, a figure that compared admirably to the national figure of 75.8 percent. College degrees, however, were scarcer than the national average; 16.5 percent had received a college or seminary degree compared to a national average of 21.3 percent. Almost two-thirds (64 percent) reported an income range of more than $15,000; roughly half of those (37 percent of the total) made over $25,000. National figures were higher, 75 percent in the more than $15,000 range and 59 percent in the more than $25,000 range (Statistical Abstract 1994, 1,157, 465; “Singing News Demographic Survey”).

60. “Singing News Demographic Survey.” As might be expected, over 85 percent reported that they regularly attended church, with 72 percent of those preferring the “all services” category. Only 5 percent identified themselves as ministers, though 26 percent were involved in their church as Sunday school teachers and 42 percent either directed or sang in their church choir.

61. “Circulation Update by State,” in Singing News Magazine and Southern Gospel Music Rate and Data Information, 14.

62. “Southern Gospel Music Quartet Market,” in Singing News Magazine and Southern Gospel Music Rate and Data Information, 7–8. The term “quartet” as used in the survey meant essentially “group” since two- and three-person groups were included along with four-person quartets. The survey also noted that the exact number of performing quartets was likely much larger in the “Home-Church Local” category than could be accurately gauged.

63. Farlow, Betsy, “The Untouchables: Aspects of White Gospel Music” (paper presented at the Popular Culture Society in the South,Louisville, Ky., 19 10 1979), 10. Copy in the files of the Country Music Foundation, Nashville, Tenn.Google Scholar