By Bob Marovich If you think the story of music in Detroit begins and ends with Motown, think again. Detroit's gospel music legacy goes back many decades, way before Berry Gordy started Hitsville, USA. The contributions that Detroiters have made to gospel music continue to enrich the genre today. The story of gospel music in Detroit [...]
The Gaithers and Southern Gospel: Homecoming in the Twenty-First Century. By Ryan P. Harper. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2017. 326 pp. (printed casebinding). Index. ISBN 978-1-4968-1090-8. $65 By Bob Marovich Rarely have television programs or video franchises received the microscopically detailed analysis that ethnographer Ryan P. Harper gives [...]
“Lord, Give Me Strength” – The Prof. Harold Boggs Story By Opal Louis Nations During the dark ages of slavery, those African Americans who escaped bondage and headed north to more liberal, free states traveled “The Underground Railroad,” led by those who risked their lives in the name of freedom. [...]
The Rise of Chicago’s Highway Q.C.s During Gospel’s Golden Era (1947-1964) by Opal Louis Nations When the Famous Blue Jay Singers of Birmingham, Alabama and Soul Stirrers of Houston came to Chicago during and after World War II, both the dynamic, hard-singing Silas Steele of the Jays and the yodeling, [...]
Check out Bob Marovich's essay, posted on the Global Small Business Blog this morning, on the five myths that persist about the birth of gospel music in Chicago. Click below: Five Myths about Gospel Music in Chicago
Living the Life I Sing: Gospel Music from the Dorsey Era to the Millennium (First Edition) Alphonso Simpson Jr. and Thomas A. Dorsey, III, eds. Paperback; 180 pages, with illustrations (Cognella Academic Publishing) https://titles.cognella.com/living-the-life-i-sing-9781634875493.html By Bob Marovich Living the Life I Sing is a fascinating collection of essays from prominent [...]
CHAMPAIGN, IL & LOS ANGELES, CA (TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2016) — Archeophone Records (www.archeophone.com) today announced that its highly-anticipated book and CD compilation, Waxing the Gospel: Mass Evangelism and the Phonograph, 1890-1900, will be released on September 30, 2016, and made available via all major brick and mortar and online [...]
Florida State University doctoral candidate Isaiah Rodriques McGee's 2007 dissertation, The Origin and Historical Development of Prominent Professional Black Choirs in the United States, is a fascinating and informative survey of the spiritual and jubilee choirs that toured the U.S. and abroad. McGee focuses on the Wings Over Jordan Choir [...]
In a fascinating article for the Southern Foodways Alliance, Carrie Allen Tipton tells the story of how quartets used to sing products off the shelves and into American homes. Harmony to sell hominy? http://www.southernfoodways.org/your-weekly-pop-not-by-bread-alone/ Carrie Allen Tipton writes and lectures about classical music, American popular music, religion, and Southern culture.
By Bob Marovich Michael Castellini made ample use of the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project at Baylor University, and the counsel of gospel music historian Professor Robert Darden, to write his Master's thesis on gospel music and the civil rights movement. In "Sit In, Stand Up and Sing Out!: Black [...]
