(Soundbite of song, "Moses Smote the Water")
THRASHER WONDERS (Group): (Singing) Mothers ain't you glad (unintelligible)? Mothers ain't you glad that the sea give away. Hallelujah. Moses smote the water and the children all passed over.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Music and song and a deep rooted sense of faith have always been hallmarks of the African-American experience, and gospel music is practically a part of the DNA. A CD coming out later this month from Smithsonian Folkways chronicles this great tradition. Classic African-American gospel was compiled and edited by George Washington University ethnomusicologist Kip Lornell. He says the oldest recording on the collection is this song performed by the Thrasher Wonders.
(Soundbite of music)
THRASHER WONDERS (Group): (Singing) Father ain't you glad…
Professor KIP LORNELL (Ethnomusicologist, George Washington University): That is actually from about 1948 or 1949.
HANSEN: No instrumentation, just voices and harmony.
Prof. LORNELL: Yes, indeed.
HANSEN: Where does this fit in the timeline of gospel music itself, not just recorded gospel music?
Prof. LORNELL: Well, it depends on how you define the term gospel. But if you think about gospel music is a really a 20th-century phenomenon, then it really does fit kind of in the middle, in the 1940s in particular - in the 1940s into the early - to mid-1950s was the age during which gospel music, particularly black American gospel music, probably reached its height of popularity and for the first time really crossed over in terms of record sales, in terms of radio airplay into the wider mainstream - in that regard read the word - white audience. So late 1940s means it was at a time when a lot of people were consuming this music one way or another both white and black.
HANSEN: In churches?
Mr. LORNELL: Not only in the churches. A lot of people who were doing performances, when they wet out in the road as either professional or semi-professional groups perform not only in churches but municipal auditoriums, community centers, people's homes. So the music was really moving out of the church in a way that it never had before.
HANSEN: The tone of the music tends to be either cheerful or mournful, and there are some melodies that seemed to have been around since music was first made. I'm referring to cut number eight, which is "Dry Bones: Ezekiel Saw the Wheel," The Missionary Quartet.
(Soundbite of song "Dry Bones: Ezekiel Saw the Wheel")
The MISSIONARY QUARTET: (Singing) (Singing) Ezekiel one saw the wheels are rolling…
Unidentified Man: (Singing) Oh, Lord, it was returning over…
The MISSIONARY QUARTET: (Singing) Ezekiel once the wheels are rolling there in the middle of the earth.
HANSEN: I'm sure a lot of people are singing in their heads the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone is connected to - so this is "Dry Bones," the melody. Is this a song that is passed from parish and pew as well as from playground to backyard?
Mr. LORNELL: I think in a lot of regards, if it's something that works, it's going to be used in a variety of context. And also that particular performance there's a couple other things to note: You - working in the realm of black American quartet tradition, which began in a very serious way in the early 20th century. And by the 1920s, you would find quartets singing in neighborhoods, quartets singing at work places. But that particular selection is very clearly influenced by a group called the Golden Gate Quartet. It's usually what's referred as a jubilee style of singing. And that developed very clearly and very distinctly with the Golden Gate's starting in the mid-1930s.
(Soundbite of music)
The GOLDEN GATE QUARTET: (Singing) Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I'm rejecting these bones from the skull to the jaw. And the skull and the jaw bones are joined together and the jaw…
HANSEN: How would you define jubilee song?
Mr. LORNELL: If you're talking about black American gospel quartet singing in jubilee, then you're talking about a particular kind of pumping bass in the background, you're talking about the kind of song and spoken lead, and usually songs that have a connection with the New Testament of the Bible.
HANSEN: I can see that jubilee style leaning to The Temptations.
Mr. LORNELL: Oh, the connection between gospel quartet jubilee singing and doo-wop and ultimately Motown is very clear. There's an undeniable continuum among all of those.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: We have been listening to some selections from the "Classic African-American Gospel Recording from Smithsonian Folkways." We've been listening mostly to voice, close harmonies, choirs. I'd like to play a little Sister Ernestine Washington with Buck Johnson.
(Soundbite of song, "Where Could I go but to the Lord")
Sister ERNESTINE WASHINGTON (Singer): (Singing) Living below in this old sinful world, hardly a comfort can afford. Striving alone to face temptation calls, anywhere could I go but to the Lord.
HANSEN: If I didn't hear that lyric, where could I go back to the Lord, I would have assumed we were in a jazz club hearing the drums and particularly that clarinet. Was that a little scandalous when those instruments and these kinds of arrangements were added to church music?
Mr. LORNELL: Well, this particular cut came out in the mid-1940s. And what really happened a decade or so before that was the real scandal. There's a man named Reverend Thomas Dorsey who was involved with performing blues in 1920s as Georgia Tom with Tampa Red. They did a very big selling song called "It's Tight Like That" in 1928.
Due to a variety of circumstances and also looking back to his own upbringing, Thomas Dorsey decided that he needed to leave the blues behind and devote his time entirely to religious music. He lived until his early 90s and died approximately 12 years ago. He ended up composing scores of songs that you would remember. For example, he was the person who actually wrote "Precious Lord, Take My Hand."
What he was criticized for was precisely that mixing of what had been considered to be entirely sacred music, lyrics and forms with what was contemporary popular music. You would probably have a similar reaction, Liane, if you listen to some gospel hip-hop. You would say, well, if I didn't listen to the words, then I would think it was just - it could be gangster rap for all I know.
(Soundbite of song "Every Time I feel the Spirit")
LEAD BELLY (Singer): (Singing) (Unintelligible) and they sing every time I feel the spirit.
HANSEN: I love the cut from Lead Belly. If you could listen to this three minutes and 23 seconds and basically hear a history of denominations and music. Let's just hear a little bit of it.
(Soundbite of song, "Every Time I feel the Spirit")
LEAD BELLY: (Singing) Do it again. Every time I feel the spirit movin' in my heart I will pray. Every time I hear the spirit movin' in my heart I will pray.
(Soundbite of song "Swing Low Sweet Chariot")
LEAD BELLY: (Singing) How did Baptist people do come along? They sing. Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.
HANSEN: And he goes on to tell us how the Baptists swing Low and the Holy Ghost people - they hung them on a cross, which is very emotional kind of singing. This is a different sort of tributary of gospel music. It's going down to the delta and then forming the blues that was coming out of their area.
Mr. LORNELL: Yeah, Lead Belly is really the quintessential 20th century black American songster. And by songster, I mean somebody who sings everything. If you were to listen to Lead Belly in the 1930s especially when it went up to New York after the Lomax's kind of discovered him and…
HANSEN: Alan Lomax…
Mr. LORNELL: Alan Lomax and there's Father John. In mid-1930s, Lead Belly hits the scene and he is singing a wide range of material that includes blues but also work songs, dance tunes on accordion. He plays piano. He plays this low down blues as you can get, but he also plays a wide range of religious music. And that's really, really the point is that religious music is just part of the well spring and all this, and they feed upon one another in terms of influences.
HANSEN: One thing gospel music was an intrical part of was the civil rights movement and much of the movement was inspired by both words and music that were heard in the churches. And on this recording, you actually have one of more well-known activist Fannie Lou Hammer. And she's singing "Go Tell It on the Mountain."
(Soundbite of song, "Go Tell It on the Mountain")
Ms. FANNIE LOU HAMMER (Activist): (Singing) Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere, go tell it on the mountain that (unintelligible) people of the world.
HANSEN: What were the circumstances of this recording? Where did it come from?
Mr. LORNELL: If I recall correctly this was actually recorded at one of the civil rights rallies in the early 1960s. And I think what a lot of people don't understand who's not old enough is these folks are really putting out lives on the line. We take so much for granted now especially while we're talking the day before the country celebrates Martin Luther King's birthday and having to perform at a rally like this one of the cohesive elements were the element of religious songs and also spirituals that virtually everybody knew. So that helped to cement the audience black and white and it was a kind of antiphony, a kind of calm response and it really did rally (unintelligible) together and Fannie Lou Hammer did that about as well as anybody.
(Soundbite of song, "Go Tell It on the Mountain")
Unidentified Group: (Singing) Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere, go tell it on the mountain that (unintelligible )people of the world.
HANSEN: The last tune is "It's Time to Make a Change," and this is recorded in 1994. So as we follow this particular band out, where are we going musically?
Mr. LORNELL: Well, if I remember right, if this is one of the shout bands, is that correct?
HANSEN: Yeah, "It's Time to Make a Change," Madison's Lively Stones.
Mr. LORNELL: Ah, well, here in Washington, D.C. as well as some other places in the mid-Atlantic States they have at the United House of Prayers for All People. In fact, we're sitting not more than six blocks from God's little White House which is a - the main temple in the area here. They're all brass ensembles primary different levels of trombones. And this is a form of music that goes back to Daddy Grace's inauguration of the church back in the teens. It is a vibrant and important form of African-American expressive culture. And one of the reasons I included this is not only to show the diversity, but to show people that there are other kinds of music out there besides vocal music in which black Americans worship the Lord.
HANSEN: So onto the gold dome of the Daddy Grace's church just blocks north of here, this is the kind of music you'd hear on the Sunday morning.
Mr. LORNELL: Yes, indeed.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: Kip Lornell of George Washington University's music department. He compiled and edited a new collection "Classical African-American Gospel" available on Smithsonian Folkways recordings on January 29th. Thanks a lot for coming in.
Mr. LORNELL: Thank you.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: To hear songs from classic African-American gospel and more interviews in the story about gospel music, check out our music site at npr.org/music.