Rock Legends

Rock Legends

Gospel is a genre of religious music, which is very much focused on a strong vocal delivery. These amazing harmonies and lyrics, which are celebratory. It’s music of unparalleled spirituality. It’s the music of hope; it’s the music of light, and it’s the music of better times ahead. It’s a combination of African Spirituals from Africans who were brought over to be slaves, and Christianity, but the non-conformist side of Christianity; Methodism, Pentecostalism. Gospel is a particularly Christian kind of music, but it’s also a music that’s infused with the African beat and the African harmonies that the slaves brought over to America. They adapted their music to some of the Christian music that was already there, particularly in a Pentecostal tradition. But also, because the churches were so segregated, then that tradition developed itself. After emancipation, many Gospel songs moved across the US, as rural black southerners moved north to cities looking for work. And these styles of celebration in the church quickly spread across America. To have a sense of singing together through harmony, but also through this uplifting spiritual message that brought people together and was an early form of black power and black pride; that’s really what Gospel was about.