Gospel Music

With the concept of the Trinity and Jesus, the Son being equal to the Father, gospel music today reaches back through the Old Testament by reaching back to the New Testament. The theme of Christianity, therefore, runs throughout the Bible and Christian music encompasses the entire Bible by centering on the last part - the conclusion - because the ending brings into focus the entire book. So contemporary gospel music is not just songs of the Jesus born two thousand years ago, but of the God of eternity. The Jewish roots have been Christianized and the branches run through the ages, a testament to the timeless spiritual thread that runs through the history of mankind. Indeed, contemporary gospel music is really a circle with the Bible as both the starting and ending point; it may be said that the history of gospel music is a series of circles that has continually grown larger as the music has become more diverse and encompassed more styles and roles in the lives of believers and non-believers. Thus, the history of gospel music is also the history of Christianity, particularly in the United States where music has played such a vital role in Christian revivals throughout the history of the country.

In the eighteenth century, some changes evolved, basically reflecting the changes occurring in England . The Methodists and their Methodism brought the Wesley hymns to New Jersey and the later comers to New England imported Isaac Watts. Ironically, the initial resistance Watts encountered with his hymns in America was the same he had encountered in England ; his "hymns of human composure" were not literal renderings of the psalms but rather from the human heart. During this time, the psalm was still the predominant form of gospel music, sung in churches as well as homes.

This influence of folk music, as well as the establishment of singing schools and the Great Revival of the nineteenth century, established the roots of the Sacred Harp and white spiritual traditions and paved the way for twentieth century southern gospel music.

It is difficult to imagine a small, sickly man, standing five feet five, with a hooked nose, small beady eyes and a head made even larger by the powdered wig topping a frail, sickly body as a "giant." Yet Watts was (and still is) a giant among hymn writers. He dominated the field in his day and his hymns continue to hold a preeminent place in gospel music. Time is a great editor and the fifty or so hymns which congregations still sing may be considered his definitive hymns.

John Wesley's major contribution to gospel music was editing, organizing and publishing the hymns of Charles. This body of work became one of the most powerful evangelizing tools that England ever knew. He also extensively translated German hymns into English, especially those by Paul Gerhardt, Tersteegen, and Zinzendorf.

Billy Sunday continued to gain steam with his revivals and attracted larger and larger crowds. Musically, his revivals took a major turn when he hired Homer Alvin Rodeheaver to replace Fred Fischer in 1910. It was Rodeheaver who revolutionized the musical portion of the revivals and began, in essence, the gospel music industry of the twentieth century with his mixture of ministry and entertainment and his creation of an independent record company as well as publishing interests.

It was also a harbinger for the emergence of gospel music on independent labels later in the century, which assured the development of the music towards a Christian consumer rather than attempting to appeal commercially to the culture-at-large. Rainbow Records was only the first of a number of small labels which recorded only gospel music and which nurtured this music by allowing each artist creative control.