Exploring American Folk Music

by Kip Lornell

  Golden Gate Quartet, circa 1941. Courtesy of Kip Lornell.

  The radio, however, continued to broadcast comedy programs and news of the war as well as all types of music into people’s homes. Of the major strains of black folk music, only religious traditions were part of radio’s standard fare. Fifteen-minute or half-hour broadcasts by black vocal gospel groups became the norm in many cities across the United States. Nashville’s Fairfield Four broadcast daily over 50,000-watt WLAC, while just to the east in Knoxville the Swan Silvertone Singers began their day with a fifteen-minute program on the less powerful WNOX.

  By the war’s end there was a pent-up demand for live performances by black gospel quartets, which was fermented by several years of restricted travel and widespread radio broadcasts. Prior to World War II only a handful of gospel quartets braved the difficulties of life on the road to become full-time touring groups. People now wanted to see and hear the groups that they had enjoyed on the radio. Independent record companies helped to fan the flames by issuing records by groups that enjoyed local or regional followings: New York City’s Trumpeteers on Score Records, the Harmonizing Four of Richmond (Virginia) on Gotham, and the Spirit of Memphis on King and Peacock. The mass media helped reinforce the interest in gospel quartets by getting this music before the public and moving it into the popular realm. Between 1945 and 1950 this grassroots black music became intensely public as hundreds of quartets toured the country performing in large auditoriums, small churches, and school halls.

  A new style, “hard gospel” quartet singing, began competing with and complementing the jubilee groups by the close of the decade. “Hard” refers to the emotionally powerful lead singing epitomized by Ira Tucker of the Dixie Hummingbirds and Julius Cheeks of the Sensational Nightingales. These singers utilized every trick in the repertoire of Afro-American folk singers: falsetto, rasps, growls, moans, highly ornamented phrasing, and so on. Their strongest, most pronounced improvisation came during the drive sections of live performances. The drive section, a repetitious groove during which the same chords or ostinato figure is repeated, encourages the lead singer to heighten emotional or spiritual feelings through improvisation. Hard gospel singing acknowledges the importance and influence of solo performers such as Alex Bradford, Mahalia Jackson, and Rosetta Tharpe.

  Many of the black gospel quartets during this period become versatile, featuring singing in both the jubilee and hard gospel style. A cappella singing characterized the styles of many of these groups, but by the early 1950s most groups had added at least one instrument (usually a guitar) to their lineup. Instruments added a solid rhythmic foundation and provided the harmonic underpinning for the singing. Their repertoires were also undergoing changes, as more of the popular gospel songs liked Roberta Martin’s “Swing Down, Chariot” or Reverend Brewster’s “Move on Up a Little Higher” became integrated into programs. The role of the bass singer was de-emphasized, probably in light of the addition of instruments that often took the bass line. Two new time signatures, 12/8 and 6/8, or compound duple meters, augmented the standard duple meters. These so-called gospel meters became quite popular and were extensively used for certain songs. Another one of Reverend Brewster’s gospel compositions from the 1940s, “Surely, God is Able,” is regularly performed in 12/8 time.

  By the early 1950s black gospel quartets concentrated on their programs as much as they did the religiosity of their musical message. Professional groups regularly performed in matching, often brightly colored, suits and had elaborate stage performances worked out. Certain groups earned reputations as “soul killers” because they put on such dramatic and moving programs. Money became an overriding concern because many of the singers had to support families. On one level black gospel quartet music had moved well beyond its grassroots status, functioning as a manifestation of popular culture. On the other hand, there were many local, community groups singing this music. They would never be stars or even semiprofessional singers, but they sang at local churches and were occasionally in demand for out-of-town programs.

  Inevitably the quartet boom ended. Professional groups such as the Soul Stirrers, Pilgrim Travelers, C.B.S. Trumpeteers, and Spirit of Memphis could no longer support themselves as touring and recording artists. Some quartets disbanded; others retreated to semiprofessional status. Many of the grassroots quartets remained true to the music of their youth, and some have celebrated anniversaries of fifty or more years: Royal Harmony Four (Memphis) and the Sterling Jubilees (Birmingham). This process took several years to wind down, but by the late 1950s the era during which quartets were wildly popular was over. Their popularity was further diminished by that of choirs and soloists during the 1960s; nonetheless, modern quartets accompanied by electric guitar, bass, and drums remain in mainstream black churches.

  By the twenty-first century popular black gospel music moved into new areas. The soloists, especially Mahalia Jackson but also Cassietta George and Delores Ward, are now old school. Larger vocal ensembles, notably large choruses and choirs like the Mississippi Mass Choir, gradually began to be heard on records and over the radio. Not surprisingly hip-hop has made inroads into gospel, once more reinvigorating gospel and (just as Dorsey sought to bring sacred music into the modern era in the early 1930s) bringing it closer to popular trends.

  FINAL THOUGHTS

  Religious music maintains its strong roots in black folk culture. Even the most modern gospel has clear links with the past, most often through the vocal styles that still emphasize the moans, growls, and other tricks that have been heard in black churches for decades. The older spirituals are still sometimes performed, but even modern gospel uses older songs. Pentecostal churches retain their conservative values; their updating is more superficial: electric instruments, microphones, and so on. Of all black folk music, the religious traditions continue to be the most vital and lively.

  KEY FIGURES AND TERMS

  Rev. Herbert W. Brewster

  camp meetings

  Church of God in Christ

  compound duple meter

  Thomas A. Dorsey

  Rev. J. M. Gates

  Golden Gate Quartet

  gospel

  Great Awakening

  guitar evangelists

  Blind Willie Johnson

  jubilee

  Pentecostal beliefs

  ring shout

  Slave Songs of the United States

  spirituals

  Dr. Watts’s hymns

  SUGGESTED LISTENING

  John Alexander’s Sterling Jubilee Singers. Jesus Hits Like An Atomic Bomb. New World 80294. Strong contemporary recordings that illustrates the diverse repertoire of an old-style gospel group that hails from one of the strongholds for quartet singing, Jefferson County, Alabama.

  Georgia Sea Island Singers. Georgia Sea Island Songs. New World 80278. Half secular and half sacred material, its all spiritual music performed by members of one of the most firmly rooted of all black music communities.

  Blind Willie Johnson. Sweeter as the Years Go By. Yazoo 1058. Some of Johnson’s best and most moving songs are included on this set.

  Osceola Mays. Spirituals and Poems. Documentary Arts. A low-key but moving collection of (mostly) nineteenth century a cappella spirituals performed solo by this female Texas artist.

  Rosetta Tharpe. Gospel of Blues. MCA B0000C52FF. A reissue of her best-known work for Decca, recorded mostly in the 1940s.

  Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers. The Colored Sacred Harp. New World 80433. Contemporary recordings of African American sacred harp singing from southern Alabama.

  Various. Acapella Gospel Singing. Folklyric 9045. An excellent survey of male gospel quartet singing from the 1920s to the 1950s, including the Golden Gate Quartet and the Soul Stirrers, among others.

  Various. Been In The Storm Too Long. Smithsonian Folkways 40031. An anthology of Georgia Sea Island material that includes examples of spirituals, shouts, and prayers recorded in the early 1960s.

  Various. Classic
African American Gospel from Smithsonian Folkways. Smithsonian Folkways SFW40194. This release samples the broad Asch/Folkways catalogue and includes quartet singing, solo spirituals, and more modern gospel.

  Various. Kings of the Gospel Highway. Shanachie SHA-CD-6039. Some of the best male quartet performances by the likes of the Sensational Nightingales and the Soul Stirrers can be heard here.

  Various. Wade in the Water, African American Sacred Music Traditions, Box Set. Smithsonian Folkways 40076-2-4. This four-CD set is a fine survey of contemporary genres. The four compact discs (“African American Spirituals: The Concert Traditions,” “African American Congregational Singing: Nineteenth Century Roots,” “African American Gospel: The Pioneering Composers,” and “African American Community Gospel”) are also available separately.

  Various. When Gospel Was Gospel. Shanachie SHA-CD-6064. A superb anthology of post-WW II that includes classics by Clara Ward, the Swan Silvertones, Mahalia Jackson, and Roberta Martin.

  SUGGESTED READING

  Ray Allen. Singing In the Spirit: African-American Sacred Quartets in New York City. Philadelphia: University of Prennsylvania Press, 1992. An ethnographic study of the (mostly male) gospel quartet community in New York City.

  Horace Boyer. How Sweet The Sound: The Golden Age Of Gospel. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000. An historical survey of gospel music (with strong photographs) that focuses on the decades of the 1920s through the 1960s.

  Candie and Guy Carawan. Ain’t We Got A Right to the Tree of Life? Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989. An ethnographic study of black life on the Georgia Sea Islands that emphasizes musical culture.

  Bill Darden. People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music. New York: Continuum Books, 2005. Perhaps the best and most balanced history thus far written on this topic.

  Jonathan C. David, with photographs by Richard Holloway. Together Let Us Sweetly Live: The Singing and Praying Bands. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Based on years of field research, David has written a heart-felt book about the Cheasapeake Bay version of ring shouts that persist into the twenty-first century.

  Tony Heilbut. The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times. New York: Anchor Books, 1975. An overview of commercial gospel music from the Depression through the late 1960s, with sketches about such important figures as Mahalia Jackson, the Soul Stirrers, and Marion Williams.

  Kip Lornell. “Happy in the Service of the Lord”: African American Sacred Harmony Quartets in Memphis, 2nd edition. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995. This book serves as an introduction to the black American quartet tradition and then focuses on Memphis over a sixty year period beginning in the 1920s.

  Deborah Smith Pollard. When the Church Becomes Your Party: Contemporary Gospel Music. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pollard explores the continuing—and often symbiotic—relationship between the sacred and the secular worlds of music into the twenty-first century.

  Bernice Johnson Reagon, ed. We’ll Understand It Better By and By—Pioneering African American Gospel Composers. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. A series of essays that discuss the history and importance of composers such as Charles Tindley, Lucie D. Campbell, Thomas Dorsey, and Kenneth Morris.

  Art Rosenbaum. The African American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. A very worthy book that describes this almost extinct religious culutral complex. The text is carefully and lavishly illustrated with photographs by Margo R. Newark.

  Robert Stone. Sacred Steel: Inside an African American Steel Guitar Tradition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010. Along with his sound recordings and film, Stone has contributed a solid book about this tradition, which should be far better known.

  Gayle Wald. Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. New York: Beacon Press, 2008. Tharpe grew up in the Pentecostal church, but spent much of her fascinating life mediating between the worlds of secular and sacred music.

  Willa Ward-Royster and Toni Rose. “How I Got Over”: Clara Ward and the World Famous Ward Singers. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1997. An account of the life and times of one of the most influential gospel soloists of the 1950s and 1960s.

  Alan Young. Woke Me Up This Morning: Black Gospel Singers and the Gospel Life. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997. Young examines the music and lives of mostly contemporary, community-based, southern black gospel singers.

  Jerry Zolten. Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Thoroughly researched and nicely written, Zolten explores not only the history of the Dixie Hummingbirds but also their impact on gospel music in the 1940s and 1950s.

  SUGGESTED VIEWING

  The Gospel According to Al Green. Mug-Shot Production/Magnum Entertainment, Inc. A lengthy portrait of this former soul singer’s carrer, including scenes in his Pentecostal church in Memphis.

  Various. Sacred Steel. Arhoolie Foundation Films. A documentary that examines several of the African American steel guitarists working in various Holiness churches in Florida and New York.

  Various. Say Amen, Somebody. (Bonus Deluxe) Rykodisc. This stirring ninety-minute documentary covers some of the most important figures in the history of black gospel music, includes extensive notes and a fifteen-track compact disc.

  Various. Singing Stream. Shanachie/Folkstreams.net. A documentary that provides a fine contextual and musical look at the Landers Family of gospel singers based in Granville County, North Carolina.

  Various. The Performed Word. Gerald Davis Films/Folkstreams.net. Folklorist Davis explores the improvised African American sermon within the context of the aesthetics of African American expressive culture.

  Chapter 7

  AFRICAN AMERICAN SECULAR FOLK MUSIC

  • Work Songs

  • String Bands

  • Fife and Drum Bands

  • Ragtime and Coon Songs

  • Ballads

  • Songsters and Rural Music

  • Down-home Blues

  • Modern Blues

  • Final Thoughts

  It would be difficult to underestimate the profound impact of nineteenth- and twentieth-century black American folk music upon our culture. In this chapter you will learn about the types of secular black folk music that developed in the United States beginning in the nineteenth century. Because slavery’s legacy left so many African Americans in rural southern areas, most of this music originated in the South. These innovations represent a move away from the early Africanized styles of folk music and directly into a uniquely and demonstrably African American hybrid, a process that began slowly but inexorably. The changes only accelerated with the end of legalized slavery, which was justifiably celebrated in songs like “The Year of Jubilee.”

  The dawn of the twentieth century saw the creation of ragtime, blues, jazz, and other influential forms of vernacular music that also reflect their southern heritage. Some of the instruments, most notably the fifes and drums or quills, are often homemade, partly reflecting the harsh economic conditions under which many blacks lived in the United States. The themes heard in many work songs—separation from loved ones, oppression by one’s “Captain,” hard work, longing for freedom—further underscore the difficult conditions under which many people lived. The important role played by songsters suggests the importance of all types of music within rural black communities, which were often far removed from the mainstream of American popular culture. Nonetheless, some of this music, especially blues, has now become a universally accepted part of our own vernacular musical vocabulary. The blues has even migrated well beyond our borders to influence popular music in other parts of the world.

  Indeed, the music discussed in this section of Exploring American Folk Music forms the foundation for much of our contemporary popular music. Virtually all forms of twentieth- century popular
music, most notably rock ’n’ roll, directly evolved from these southern black roots. Although it might seem like a long distance from Scott Joplin’s ragtime to the Gershwin Brothers, Elvis Presley, and the hip-hop nation of the 1990s, the direct links to earlier black folk music are there. (The precise nature of these relationship is more fully discussed in chapter 11.)

  WORK SONGS

  A work song is simply any song performed by workers that assists them in carrying out their task. With the exception of sea shanties and possibly some nineteenth-century cowboy songs (only a handful of which would be of black origin), work songs have been principally the domain of black American laborers. Anglo-American shanties, for example, flourished throughout the nineteenth century, particularly between 1820 and 1860, but faded as sailing ships were supplanted by steam vessels. Sea shanties accompanied all types of nautical work, including raising and lowering sails or hauling in an anchor. The songs themselves derive from a variety of sources: the minstrel stage, English ballads, popular contemporary ditties, even military marching songs. As long as the words and tune were well known, almost any song could be used as a sea shanty.

  African American work songs, however, constitute a much richer, longer-lasting tradition. Black workers have utilized songs to accompany everything from shoe shining to poling a riverboat. In the nineteenth century, novels, diaries, and other printed sources describe all types of work songs, but it wasn’t until the twentieth century that they began to be properly documented. These songs occasionally utilize harmonization and usually follow a simple, recurrent structure featuring unison singing or some type of call and response. Because so many twentieth-century work songs were collected in prisons, their themes are often related to incarceration. Sometimes even a religious folk song, like “Sign of Judgement,” can be transformed into a work song. Most work songs, however, are based on secular themes, often escape or freedom of movement.