According to Yale University music professor Willie Ruff, the singing of psalms in
Scottish Gaelic by
Presbyterians of the Scottish
Hebrides evolved from "
lining out"—where one person sang a solo and others followed—into the call and response of gospel music of the American South.
18th century Perhaps the most famous gospel-based hymns were composed in the 1760s and 1770s by English writers
John Newton ("
Amazing Grace") and
Augustus Toplady ("Rock of Ages"), members of the
Anglican Church. Starting out as lyrics only, decades were needed for standardized tunes to be added to them. Although not directly connected with African-American gospel music, they were adopted by African Americans as well as white Americans, and Newton's connection with the
abolition movement provided cross-fertilization.
Holiness-Pentecostal era (19th century) The first published use of the term "Gospel song" probably appeared in 1874 when
Philip Bliss released a songbook entitled
Gospel Songs. A Choice Collection of Hymns and Tunes. It was used to describe a new style of church music, songs that were easy to grasp and more easily singable than the traditional church
hymns, which came out of the mass revival movement starting with
Dwight L. Moody, whose musician was
Ira D. Sankey, as well as the
Holiness–
Pentecostal movement. The revival movement employed popular singers and song leaders, the most famous of them being Ira D. Sankey. The original "gospel" songs were written and composed by authors such as
George F. Root,
Philip Bliss,
Charles H. Gabriel,
William Howard Doane, and
Fanny Crosby. Sankey and Bliss's collection can be found in many libraries today. The popularity of revival singers and the openness of rural churches to this type of music (in spite of its initial use in city revivals) led to the late 19th and early 20th century establishment of gospel music publishing houses such as those of
Homer Rodeheaver,
E. O. Excell,
Charlie Tillman, and
Charles Tindley. These publishers were in the market for large quantities of new music, providing an outlet for the creative work of many songwriters and composers. The advent of radio in the 1920s greatly increased the audience for gospel music, and
James D. Vaughan used radio as an integral part of his business model, which also included traveling quartets to publicize the gospel music books he published several times a year.
Virgil O. Stamps and
Jesse R. Baxter studied Vaughan's business model and by the late 1920s were running heavy competition for Vaughan. The 1920s also saw the marketing of gospel records by groups such as the
Carter Family.
Emergence of Black gospel (1920s–1970s) has been called the "Queen of Gospel". The Pentecostal movement quickly made inroads with churches not attuned to the Europeanized Black church music that had become popular over the years since Emancipation. These congregations readily adopted and contributed to the gospel music publications of the early 20th century.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, pioneer of
rock and roll, soon emerged from this tradition as the first great gospel recording artist. The first person to introduce ragtime to gospel (and the first to play piano on a gospel recording) was
Arizona Dranes. The 1930s saw the rise of Black gospel quartets such as the
Five Blind Boys of Mississippi and the
Five Blind Boys of Alabama. In addition to these high-profile quartets, there were many Black gospel musicians performing in the 1920s and 30s, usually playing the guitar and singing in the streets of Southern cities. In the 1930s, in Chicago,
Thomas A. Dorsey turned to gospel music, establishing a publishing house. It has been said that 1930 was the year traditional black gospel music began, as the National Baptist Convention first publicly endorsed the music at its 1930 meeting. Dorsey was responsible for developing the musical careers of many African-American artists, such as Mahalia Jackson (best known for her rendition of his "
Precious Lord, Take My Hand"). The Soul Stirrers introduced R.H. Harris, Sam Cooke, and Johnnie Taylor.
Sensational Nightingales, Swan Silvertones, the Soul Stirrers, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Five Blind Boys of Mississippi and
the Dixie Hummingbirds were popular in afroamerican gospel fans. In 1964, the
Gospel Music Association was established, which in turn began the
Dove Awards (in 1969) and the
Gospel Music Hall of Fame (in 1972). Both of the latter two groups began primarily for Southern gospel performers, but in the late 1970s, began including artists of other subgenres, which brought in many Black artists. Deep gospel Artists such as
James Cleveland and
Aretha Franklin performed traditional gospel style. In 1969,
James Cleveland established the
Gospel Music Workshop of America, a Black gospel outlet. Late 20th-century musicians such as
Elvis Presley,
Jerry Lee Lewis, and the
Blackwood Brothers were also known for their gospel influences and recordings.
Contemporary Black gospel and gospel rap (1970s–present) Urban contemporary gospel emerged in the late 1960s and early 70s with the
Edwin Hawkins Singers highly popular gospel song "
Oh Happy Day" (1969) which is still performed worldwide in the 2000s. Pop gospel musician
Andraé Crouch and the Clark Sisters followed them. And this pattern would repeat itself in subsequent decades, with new artists like
Yolanda Adams and
Kirk Franklin making increasingly more bold forays into the secular world with their musical stylings. The current sphere of Black gospel recording artists is almost exclusively of the urban contemporary bent. Also of note is the rise of
Christian (or gospel) rap/hip-hop, which has gained increasing popularity since the days of the
Gospel Gangstaz and
The Cross Movement. Often considered a subgenre of urban contemporary gospel, Christian rap has become dominated in present times by artists from
Reach Records, who have seen perhaps the most commercial success of any artists in the gospel genre;
Lecrae (the label's founder and preeminent artist) has charted in the top 10 of on the
Billboard 200 three times, with his 2014 album
"Anomaly" debuting at No. 1. == Subgenres ==