MUSIC AND THE GRAY CHURCH
HOW MOTOWN CHANGED AMERICA, AND
ANDRAÉ CROUCH CHANGED THE CHURCH
by Alexander MacDougall
Although I sometimes long for the 50s, 60s, and 1867, just two years after the Civil War ended. 1938. “Spirituals” will form the foundations
70s, the times were not always easy. Despite What is remarkable about this publication is that for what will become blues, jazz, rhythm and
the sentiments of best-loved television shows for the first-time black music was documented blues, and of course Gospel Music.
like “Leave It to Beaver” and “The Adventures in a printed-book rather than relegated to of Ozzie and Harriet”, the times were often oral communication only. These songs were Washington Phillips, an African American
fraught with nightly news that rivals the anxiety captured by three white abolitionists, who not recording artist, hailed from just east of Waco,
of today’s divisions communicated to viewers. only documented the lyrics phonetically, but TX. During the 1920s, he recorded some
Besides the quiet terror of a nuclear threat also notated the melodies. And as the title of of the earliest Gospel music. Listen to his
during those Cold War days, our racially divided the book states, these were slave songs. As “Denomination Blues” and “Take Your Burden
America extended even into the world of music. you read the lyrics you will be touched by their to the Lord”.
It would make sense that music, because of its overt religious content, their deep prayers for common denominators, would eventually break freedom, and their plight as believers, much like through to help bridge this racial gap on radio, King David did in the Book of Psalms.
and eventually into the mainstream church.
This bedrock collection will lead to further
But let’s step back a bit - back to the mid 1860s! printed “spirituals” and publications including
The first book of African American Music, “Slave “Plantation Melodies”, in 1882, and WC
Songs of the United States”, was published in Handy’s “Collection of Negro Spirituals”, in
Denomination Blues
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February 2019
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