Southern gospel

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Gospel music
Roots and beginnings Christian Hymns Negro Spirituals Sacred Harp Shape note
Genres and subgenres Southern Gospel Gospel blues Bluegrass gospel Christian country music Country Gospel Progressive Southern Gospel Urban contemporary gospel Christian hip hop
Related music genres CCM Soul Southern soul
Associations and groups Gospel Music Hall of Fame Gospel Music Workshop of America National Gospel Singing Convention National Quartet Convention Australian Gospel Music Association GMA Canada
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Category Musicians See also: Christianity: Portal Category Category
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Southern gospel music is a genre of

The date of southern gospel's establishment, as a distinct genre, is generally considered to be 1910. The year the first professional quartet was formed for the purpose of selling songbooks for the James D. Vaughan Music Publishing Company in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Nonetheless, the style of the music itself had existed for at least 35 years prior—although the traditional wisdom that southern gospel was "invented" in the 1870s by circuit preacher Everett Beverly is spurious.

The existence of the genre prior to 1910 is evident in the work of Charles Davis Tillman (1861–1943), who popularized "The Old Time Religion", wrote "Life's Railway to Heaven" and published 22 songbooks.^[1][2][3] Some of the genre's roots can be found in the publishing work and "normal schools" or singing schools of Aldine S. Kieffer and Ephraim Ruebush. Southern gospel was promoted by traveling singing school teachers, quartets, and shape note music publishing companies such as the A. J. Showalter Company (1879) and the Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company.

Over time, southern gospel came to be an eclectic musical form with groups singing traditional hymns, a capella (jazz-style singing with no instruments) songs, country, bluegrass, spirituals, and "convention songs". Because it grew out of the musical traditions of white musicians from the American South, the name Southern gospel was used to differentiate it from the black gospel tradition.^[4][5]

Convention songs typically have contrasting homophonic and contrapuntal sections. In the homophonic sections, the four parts sing the same words and rhythms. In the contrapuntal sections, each group member has a unique lyric and rhythm. These songs are called "convention songs" because various conventions were organized across the United States for the purpose of getting together regularly and singing songs in this style. Convention songs were employed by training centers like the Stamps-Baxter School Of Music as a way to teach quartet members how to concentrate on singing their own part. Examples of convention songs include "Heavenly Parade", "I'm Living In Canaan Now", "Give the World a Smile", and "Heaven's Jubilee".

Early performers

Southern gospel is sometimes called "quartet music" by fans because of the originally all-male, tenor-lead-baritone-bass quartet makeup. Early quartets were typically either a cappella or accompanied only by piano or guitar, and in some cases a piano and banjo in areas that were influenced by bluegrass music such as Appalachia. Over time, full bands were added and even later, pre-recorded accompaniments (soundtracks) were introduced.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, southern gospel drew much of its creative energy from the

Gaither Homecoming series

Traditional southern gospel music underwent a tremendous surge in popularity during the 1990s thanks to the efforts of

By the 1990s, the "old-timey" quartet-style music began to develop to include more soloists and duos. Although still mostly popular in the Southeast and Southwest, it has a nationwide and even international audience. The music remains "more country than city, more down-home than pretentious".^[6]

In 2005, The Radio Book, a broadcast yearbook published by M Street Publications, reported 285 radio stations in the U.S. with a primary format designation as "southern gospel," including 175 AM stations and 110 FM stations. In fact, southern gospel was the 9th most popular format for AM stations and the 21st most popular for FM. Southern gospel radio promoters routinely service more than a thousand radio stations which play at least some southern gospel music each week. Recent years have also seen the advent of a number of internet-only southern gospel "radio" stations.

Two popular satellite stations that feature southern gospel are channel 34 on XM Satellite Radio and Channel 65 (changed from 67). On Sirius Satellite Radio. Both play the same feed entitled, "

Becoming popular through songbooks, such as those published by R. E. Winsett of Dayton, Tennessee, southern gospel was and is one of the few genres to use recordings, radio, and television technologies from the very beginning for the advancements of promoting the genre.^[8]

One of the longest-running print magazines for southern gospel music has been the

Internet Radio has broadened the southern gospel music fan base by using computer technologies and continual streaming. Some of these media outlets are: Sunlite Radio which features many of the southern gospel programs likewise heard on traditional radio. This list includes The Gospel Greats with Paul Heil, which recently celebrated 30 years on the air, Southern Gospel USA, a weekly half-hour countdown show hosted by Gary Wilson, Classic radio programs such as The Old Gospel Ship and Heaven's Jubilee with Jim Loudermilk.[11] Another online station is "The Gospel Station."^[12]

References