Making a joyful noise unto God
I am listening to some ABSOLUTELY SWINGIN' GOSPEL MUSIC this morning, both by the early BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA (pictured, circa 1940s) and the marvelous SWAN SILVERTONES."We're gonna wake up, wake up and swing on the golden gate!"
-- "Swingin' on the Golden Gate," the Blind Boys of Alabama.
Obviously, it wasn't the intention of these pioneering vocal groups to influence R&B (and in particular, the soul and funk strains) but -- "GOOD GOD!" -- that is exactly what happened.
Simply put, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, James Brown and so many others either emerged from the Gospel scene or were profoundly influenced by it.
Beyond its importance musically, this music certainly does help recharge my spirit.
"O come, let us sing unto the Lord: Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation."
-- Psalm 95: 1-3.
Amen to that.
posted by erik hogstrom at 7:51 AM
1 Comments:
A lot of the gospel music from that era is simply magnificent. I started out listening Soul Stirrers releases, but have ventured into a few other groups, and you can tell that gospel music was truly the precursor to Soul.
(from one "with a 'k'" to another!)
Erik Greene
Author, “Our Uncle Sam: The Sam Cooke Story From His Family's Perspective”
www.OurUncleSam.com
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