Black Gospel
"Steal Away"
How It Began
The tradition that came to be recognized as Black American gospel music emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries alongside ragtime, blues, and jazz. However, the initiators of the tradition lie in both Black and white music of the 19th century, including, most notably, Black spirituals, songs of enslaved people, and white hymnody.
The roots of Black gospel music can be ultimately traced to the hymnals of the early 19th century. A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns Selected from Various Authors (1801) was the first hymnal intended for use in Black worship. It contained texts written mostly by 18th-century British clergymen, such as Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, but also included a number of poems by Black American Richard Allen—the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church—and his parishioners. After the Civil War, Black hymnals began to include music, but most of the arrangements employed the rhythmically and melodically straightforward, unembellished style of white hymnody.
Continuing the Legacy
The immediate movement for the development of this new, energetic, and distinctly Black gospel music seems to have been the rise of Pentecostal churches at the end of the 19th century. Pentecostal "shouting" is related to speaking in tongues and to circle dances of African origin. Recordings of Pentecostal preachers’ sermons were immensely popular among Black Americans in the 1920s, and recordings of them along with their choral and instrumental accompaniment and congregational participation persisted, so that ultimately Black gospel reached the white audience as well. The voice of the Black gospel preacher was affected by Black secular performers and vice versa. Taking the scriptural direction “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord” (Psalm 150), Pentecostal churches welcomed tambourines, pianos, organs, banjos, guitars, other stringed instruments, and some brass into their services. Choirs often featured the extremes of female vocal range in call-and-response counterpoint with the preacher’s sermon. Improvised recitative passages, melismatic singing (singing of more than one pitch per syllable), and an extraordinarily expressive delivery also characterize Black gospel music.
Mahalia Jackson
Among prominent Black gospel music composers and practitioners have been the Rev. C.A. Tindley, composer of “I’ll Overcome Someday,” which may have served as the basis for the anthem of the American civil rights movement, “We Shall Overcome”; Reverend Gary Davis, a wandering preacher, and guitar soloist; Thomas A. Dorsey, a prolific and best-selling songwriter whose works included, most notably, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”; and the Reverend C.L. Franklin of Detroit (mother of soul music singer Aretha Franklin), who issued more than 70 albums of his sermons and choir after World War II. Important women in the Black gospel tradition have included Roberta Martin, a gospel pianist based in Chicago with a choir and a school of gospel singing; Mahalia Jackson, who toured internationally and was often broadcast on television and radio; and Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915–73), whose guitar and vocal performances introduced gospel into nightclubs and concert theatres.
Rev. Cleavant Derricks
Born in Chattanooga, Reverend Cleavant Derricks (May 13, 1909 – April 14, 1977) was a pastor and choir director at several black Baptist churches. He studied at Cadek Conservatory of Music in Chattanooga, A & I State University, and American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville. At age 21, he directed a gospel choir of more than 100 voices in Washington, D.C. at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church. Cleavant Derricks counted among his friends many well-known artists, one of which was Mahalia Jackson. He pastored churches throughout Tennessee at Dayton, Knoxville and Jackson; also in Beloit, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. Mr. Derricks has many outstanding credits: pastor, church builder, choir director, poet, musician, and composer of note, having written more than 300 songs and several song books. Among his more famous songs are the much-recorded and performed "Just a Little Talk with Jesus," "When God Dipped His Love In My Heart," "We'll Soon Be Done With Troubles and Trials," and "When He Blessed My Soul." He was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1984. He is the father of twin actor sons Cleavant Derricks and Clinton Derricks-Carroll.
