SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 2025 | SANTA MONICA, CA
2:30-4:30 pm
SIDNEY
EDWARDS
DONALD
TAYLOR
Gospel: The American Experience
We immesre oursleves deep into the evolution of Gospel, including the enormous role that L.A. plays in creating modern Urban Black Gospel. Powered by amazing arragnements, our journey spotlights the musical underpinings of contmeporary Rock 'N Roll, Soul, Pop, and Hip Hop.
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We explore why Gospel's been called a combination of the bad news of the blues and the good news of spirituals; we unpack the blending of African rhythms with Gregorian Chants, in a tortured alchemy, forged by the American experience, into something altogether new-- and rapturous. In this way, Gospel is perhaps the most American form of expression.
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In California and LA, local pioneers transition the Gospel Blues into today’s Urban/Black Gospel, perhaps the most emotionally explosive genre.
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We discover why research shows that gospel music alleviates anxiety and depression; it fosters community; it brings out the best in us.
The Father and The Queen
Thomas Dorsey
Mahalia Jackson
Our story starts in Chicago, of course, where a young Blues man, Thomas Dorsey, arrives from Atlanta as part of the great migration and blends the Blues with the Gospel, calling it the Gospel Blues. During the great depression, he becomes the music Director at Pilgrim Baptist and to earn a living, sells sheet music on street corners for 10 cents. Frequently, his singing partner on the corners is the prodigy Mahalia Jackson.
Dorsey goes on to write more than 1,000 gospel songs and is revered as the Father of Gospel. His impact becomes so vast that gospel recordings are known as “Dorseys”. He writes his most famous song, "Precious Lord, Take My Hand” in 1932 in the wake of the childbirth deaths of his wife and son.
Mahalia Jackson, who sings on those Chicago street corners with Dorsey, goes on to become the Queen of Gospel. She is still atop the list of all-time greatest and most beloved gospel singers. She is chosen by her good friend Martin Luther King, Jr. to be the musical voice of the civil rights movement. She sings at both the March on Washington and JFK’s inauguration. And she sings MLK’s favorite song, Dorsey’s "Precious Lord”, at his funeral, as he had requested.
The Almost Forgotten Innovator
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
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After starting to perform at church at 6 years old, Sister Rosetta Tharpe makes several of Dorsey’s songs hits, before her solo career soars. She plays at the Cotton Club, Carnegie Hall, and the Apollo-- and plays with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie. She is the first major bridge between the secular and the sacred, becoming both the original soul sister and the godmother of rock and roll.
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In contrast to Dorsey, Sister Rosetta is groovier and more expressive, likely reflecting both her virtuosity with the electric guitar and her deep exposure to the improvisational nature of Pentecostal worship. She’s the first gospel artist to significantly crossover outside the gospel genre, blending Blues and R&B, delivering her guitar riffs in ways that now can only be described as rock.
Chuck Berry admits that his entire career was basically “one long Sister Tharpe impression”, including even his famous duck walk. Little Richard is discovered and mentored by Sister Tharpe. Little Elvis Presley rushes home from school to catch her radio broadcasts.
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She lives in Los Angeles for a brief time while recording in the early 1940s. She plays at Sesbastain’s Cotton Club at Washington and National and the Philips CME Chapel in Santa Monica. Unbelievably, she’s buried in an unmarked grave for 37 years, lost in history. But she’s rediscovered relatively recently, getting a proper headstone in 2008 and gaining admission to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
The King and the Queen
James Cleveland & Aretha Franklin
The roots of contemporary gospel, which powerfully blend jazz and R&B, emerge from the choir at Dorsey’s Chicago church in the form of James Cleveland. In 1950 he bursts onto the scene to become the most prolific gospel arranger for decades.
Cleveland moves to Detroit in the ’60s, where he mentors a young Aretha Franklin as part of his Music Directorship at the Pilgrim church. In the late 1960s he moves to LA and founds his own church and the Southern California Community Choir.
In Los Angeles in 1972, he and Aretha Franklin collaborate to create one of the best selling and most artistic gospel albums of all time, Aretha’s Amazing Grace. They record live at the New Temple Missionary Baptist church on South Broadway over two days in one of the most famous sessions in gospel history, with Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts in attendance.
The West Coast Blues
T-Bone Walker, Pee Wee Crayton, and Big Mama Thornton
We also trace the rarely-told backstory of West Coast Blues, which also incubates in Los Angeles, combining Jazz and Jump into a powerful new style that evolves alongside early R&B.
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T-Bone Walker, an eclectic guitar pioneer, leads a large group of early Southern transplants that created the West Coast Blues movement (along with Crayton, Vinson, Fulson, Turner, and others).
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Big Mama Thornton (and later Etta James) bring their powerful voices to this new genre. Thornton is a true cross-over artist, who is the first to record "Hound Dog", before Elvis Presley; and she frequently sings Gospel. She dies penniless in a boarding house in LA, though others sell millions of copies of her songs, and she is buried in a shared grave. In 2024, Thornton was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category.
Hawkins: The Birth Of Modern Gospel
Edwin Hawkins and his Hawkins Singers essentially launch the modern era of Urban/Black Contemporary Gospel in 1968. Their grammy-winning masterpiece “Oh Happy Day” crosses over the charts to become what is likely the most popular gospel single of all time.
Hawkins is a genius of arrangement: he fuses R&B, Soul, Jazz, and Latin elements into highly dynamic structures that build from quiet intros to towering crescendos. His works are the playbook for much of the Black Gospel to follow.
Hawkins's younger brother, Walter, is also a major figure in the evolution of the modern Gospel.
Gospel Goes Mainstream
Andraé Crouch, sometimes referred to as the "Father of Modern Gospel Music," was perhaps the final trailblazer who helped gospel music become embedded in mainstream Pop music.
Crouch built on the cross-over success of Sister Tharpe, Mahaila Jackson, and the Hawkins, and was a masterful collaborator. Along with his sister, Sandra, he world worked closely with artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Quincy Jones, and Stevie Wonder. He arranged and conducted the choir on Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" and Madonna's "Like a Prayer"; and his compositions are featured in soundtracks such as The Color Purple and The Lion King.
Man In The Mirror
Siedah Garrett and MJ
Recorded in 1988 in West Hollywood with Andraé Crouch and Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson's masterpiece "Man in the Mirror" is the most iconic example of gospel’s influence in mainstream pop music. The song builds to an emotional crescendo, driven by a full gospel choir, delivering rich harmonies and spiritual depth.
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The lyrical themes also reflect the gospel’s ethos of self-awareness, accountability, and the drive to inspire change. Instrumentally, the song incorporates elements commonly found in gospel, such as call-and-response, soaring vocal runs, dynamic layers, and a crucial key change. The key change aligns with the song’s peak emotional and spiritual moment, as the repeated calls to "change" are accompanied by Jackson’s increasingly passionate ad-libs and the choir’s swelling harmonies.
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The song is written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. Garrett is a Compton native who grew up singing in church and became a regular partner of Michael Jackson, Madonna, the Pointer Sisters, Donna Summer, and Jennifer Hudson. We conclude our show with Man in the Mirror—not only for its powerful call to personal and collective transformation but also because it brings the journey full circle: a once "niche" gospel sound becoming part of the mainstream.
