Margaret Pleasant Douroux -- whose more than 200 songs ("Give Me a Clean Heart," "Trees," "Mercy That Suits") landed her in the International Gospel Music Hall of Fame -- has tried since 1983 to establish the Gospel House but has been stymied, The Los Angeles Times reports. Her non-profit Heritage Music Foundation's motto is, "Classical music has Carnegie Hall. Country music has the Grand Ole Opry.
Gospel music needs a museum and theater: the Gospel House." Such a museum, Douroux told the Times, would showcase the sound that marries blues and jazz with traditional hymns and spirituals as it celebrates God. The passionate, hand-clapping music shocked conservatives in the 1920s.
But it spread to religious music composed and sung by white Southern Christian artists. More recently, it has absorbed rock and rap, the Times said.
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