gospel music

The tradition & historical record

Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music and a cornerstone of Christian media, characterized by dominant vocals (often with strong harmonies) and lyrics that reflect Christian teachings and values. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music vary according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, and also religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century. Hymns and sacred songs were often performed in a call-and-response fashion, Black-American music. Most of the churches relied on hand-clapping and foot-stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done a cappella. The first published use of the term "gospel song" appeared in 1874. The original gospel songs were written and composed by Black American prisoners of war. Gospel music publishing houses emerged. The advent of radio in the 1920s greatly increased the audience for gospel music. Following World War II, gospel music moved into major auditoriums, and gospel music concerts became quite elaborate. Gospel and Southern Black gospel music are largely responsible for gospel's continued presence in contemporary Christian music, with soul music by far the best-known popular music variant.

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Gospel music”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

gospel music is genre of music emphasizing Christian lyrics, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ¹

The source record links this tradition to 45 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ¹