From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gospel music refers to the religious music that first came out of churches in the first quarter of the twentieth century or, more loosely, to both black and to the religious music composed and sung by predominately white artists. While the separation between the two styles was never absolute both drew from the hymnal and artists in one tradition sometimes sang songs belonging to the other. The sharp division between black and white America, particularly black and white churches, kept the two apart. While those divisions have lessened slightly in the past fifty years, the two traditions are still distinct.
In both traditions, some performers, such as have limited themselves to appearing in religious contexts only, while others, such as , and , have performed gospel music in secular settings, even night clubs. Many performers, such as , , , and have performed both secular and religious music.
It is common for such performers to include gospel songs in otherwise secular performances, although the opposite almost never happens.
The music popularized by pioneers had its roots mostly in spirituals sung by southern slaves during the 18th and 19th century but also in the freewheeling forms of religious devotion of 'Sanctified' or 'Holiness' churches, who encouraged individual church members to 'testify', speaking or singing spontaneously about their faith and experience, sometimes while dancing in celebration. In the 1920s Sanctified artists, such as Arizona Dranes, many of whom were also traveling preachers, started making records in a style that melded traditional religious themes with barrelhouse, blues and boogie-woogie techniques and brought jazz instruments, such as drums and horns, into the church.
, a subgenre of gospel music with a country flair, is also known as Country Gospel or Inspirational Country.
or Country gospel, often referred to as White Gospel to distinguish it from black gospel, has followed a different trajectory during the past eighty years. Some of its roots are found in the publishing work and "normal schools" of and .
It was promoted by traveling teachers, southern gospel quartets, and music publishing companies such as the A. J. Showalter Company ( ), the James D.
Vaughan Publishing Company and the .
is an American music genre that has grown out of Southern Gospel over the past couple of decades.
Gospel Music Association Canada is a division of the GMA and promotes the genre's performers and songwriters in Canada.
The organisation has some 2,000 members.
The Gospel Music Association of Japan is a division of the GMA and promotes the genre's performers and songwriters in Japan. The organisation is based in Tokyo.
The Slavic Gospel Association of New Zealand has a focus on praise music in various Slavonic languages on Gospel themes. The organisation is based in Auckland.
One trend in modern music is to use a gospel choir occasionally in the middle of a song in a different genre, such as or .
The following are examples.
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