It has provided both "spiritual and communal uplift," first in the fields, and later in the Black Church; during the 1960s era in the South, it was described as the "soundtrack of the struggle for civil rights," helping create unity and faith for the work.
This eventually led to the banning of drums in many parts of colonial America, as well as other instruments related to West African patrimony.
This, along with the repetition and "call and response" elements familiar to West African music, helped to engender an ecstatic, trance-like state and to strengthen communal bonds.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe would emerge from the Black Pentecostal tradition as the first notable gospel recording artist.
[8] Arizona Dranes, the first-recorded gospel pianist, came from similar roots during this period and helped introduce ragtime stylings to the genre.On the other hand, many Black Christians during this time (especially those in the North) had adopted a much milder form of Christian worship than their enslaved predecessors, reflecting more influence from Europe than from Africa.
With biblical knowledge from his father, who was a Baptist minister, and taught to play the piano by his mother, he called himself "Georgia Tom", and worked with blues musicians when the family moved to Atlanta.
He went north to Chicago in 1916 and, after receiving his union card, became a notable artist in the area and also joined Pilgrim Baptist Church.
He dropped secular music after a second conversion experience in 1921 at the National Baptist Convention, but quickly returned to the work for economic reasons, performing with artists like Ma Rainey.
While Pentecostalism grew on the West Coast and elsewhere, Black Christians in the South began to develop a quartet (and quartet-ish) style of a cappella gospel music, occasioning the rise of groups such as Julius Cheeks & Sensational Nightingales, the Swan Silvertones, The Soul Stirrers, the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, the Fairfield Four, and the Golden Gate Quartet.
[16] With the continuing rise in popularity of music as a form of radio, concert, and home entertainment, came the desire of some gospel artists to "cross over" into the secular genres and spaces that would afford them more exposure and success.
This pattern would repeat itself in subsequent decades, with new artists like Yolanda Adams, the Clark Sisters, Fred Hammond, Marvin Sapp, and Kirk Franklin making increasingly more bold forays into the secular world with their musical stylings, facing criticism from many within their tradition.
[17] They gained commercial success in R&B chart and the current sphere of Black gospel recording artists is almost exclusively of the urban contemporary bent.
[18] Christ-Janer said "the music was tuneful and easy to grasp ... rudimentary harmonies ... use of the chorus ... varied metric schemes ... motor rhythms were characteristic ...
It relies heavily on rhythms and instrumentation common in the secular music of the contemporary era (often including the use of electronic beats), while still incorporating the themes and heritage of the traditional Black gospel genre.
Kirk Franklin was the foremost (and by far the best-selling) individual this genre, while Andrae Crouch, Donnie McClurkin were also very popular and noteworthy.