Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century. Hymns and sacred songs were often performed in a call and response fashion, heavily influenced by ancestral African music. Most of the churches relied on hand-clapping and foot-stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done a cappella.
Gospel music (also known as “black gospel music” or “African American gospel music”) is a sacred music genre that emerged in the 1920s out of a confluence of sacred hymns, spirituals, shouts, jubilee quartet songs, and black devotional songs with noticeable blues and jazz rhythmic and harmonic influences. It is often considered the sacred root of several American pop music genres. Thomas A. Dorsey (the “father of gospel music”) coined the term in Chicago in 1921. Dorsey used the term gospel song to differentiate his music from “gospel hymns,” a term often used among African American hymn writers of the early 20th century. Initially, gospel was met with resistance from many church leaders; however, other composers began to contribute to the style, and audiences continued to support this sonic mix of black sacred folk music traditions with urban styles of popular music. Like African American spirituals of the 19th century, the lyrical content of gospel music is centrally important, and it addresses the worldviews, theologies, culture, and experiences of African Americans. Song lyrical content can be devotional, testimonial, inspirational, social justice oriented, or evangelistic. It can be performed in a variety of vocal settings (i.e., choir, ensemble, solo, or duet) and usually has instrumental accompaniment. Several factors contributed to the delayed scholarly research of gospel music in the midst of its mid-20th century expansion, including biases against non-Western art music traditions and difficulties in distinguishing gospel from other black sacred music forms. While gospel music had established channels for publication, recording, distribution, and performance by the mid-20th century, consistent scholarship on gospel music did not emerge until the late 1960s. Prior to this time, many accounts of gospel music came from popular magazines and African American newspapers. A great deal of gospel music research has been devoted to tracing its origins, identifying its founders and pioneering influences, and documenting its growth and development. Because the genre includes regional, denominational, stylistic, and theological influences from a variety of sources within African American Christian communities, the scholarship includes chronological framings of gospel music as well as stylistic approaches that take account of musicological analysis of substyles and eras of gospel music (i.e., classic, traditional, modern, contemporary, and urban contemporary). In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, additional research topics emerged, such as gospel as a symbol of ethnic identity, the gospel music industry, gender and performance, gospel’s international influence, theology, and documenting gospel music research.