What do you think?
Rate this book
People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music
People Get Ready!: A New History of Gospel Music is a passionate, celebratory, and carefully researched chronology of one of America's greatest treasures. From Africa through the spirituals, from minstrel music through jubilee, and from traditional to contemporary gospel, People Get Ready! shows the links between styles, social patterns, and artists. The emphasis is on the stories behind the songs and musicians. From the nameless slaves of Colonial America to Donnie McClurkin, Yolanda Adams, and Kirk Franklin, People Get Ready! provides, for the first time, an accessible overview of this musical genre. In addition to the more familiar stories of Thomas A. Dorsey and Mahalia Jackson, the book offers intriguing new insights into the often forgotten era between the Civil War and the rise of jubilee-that most intriguing blend of minstrel music, barbershop harmonies, and the spiritual. Also chronicled are the connections between some of gospel's precursors (Blind Willie Johnson, Arizona Dranes, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe) and modern gospel stars, including Andrae Crouch and Clara Ward. People Get Ready! knits together a number of narratives, and combines history, musicology and spirituality into a coherent whole, stitched together by the stories of dozens of famous and forgotten musical geniuses.
FROM THE INTRODUCTION
"Among the richest of the lavish gifts Africa has given to the world is rhythm. The beat. The sound of wood on wood, hand on hand. That indefinable pulse that sets blood to racing and toes to tapping. It is rhythm that drives the great American musical exports, the spiritual (and, by extension, gospel), the blues, jazz and rock 'n' roll. But first you must have the spirituals-religion with rhythm.
In this book, I will show the evolution of a musical style that only occasionally slows down its evolution long enough to be classified before it evolves yet again. In historical terms, spirituals emerged from African rhythm, work-songs, and field hollers in a remarkably short time-years, perhaps days-after the first African slaves landed on American shores. From the spirituals sprang not just their spiritual heir jubilee, but jazz and blues. And gospel music in its modern understanding morphed from the spirituals, the blues, jubilee and-of course-African rhythm.
What today's gospel music is and what it is becoming is part of the continuing evolution of African American music. Religion with rhythm."
FROM THE INTRODUCTION
"Among the richest of the lavish gifts Africa has given to the world is rhythm. The beat. The sound of wood on wood, hand on hand. That indefinable pulse that sets blood to racing and toes to tapping. It is rhythm that drives the great American musical exports, the spiritual (and, by extension, gospel), the blues, jazz and rock 'n' roll. But first you must have the spirituals-religion with rhythm.
In this book, I will show the evolution of a musical style that only occasionally slows down its evolution long enough to be classified before it evolves yet again. In historical terms, spirituals emerged from African rhythm, work-songs, and field hollers in a remarkably short time-years, perhaps days-after the first African slaves landed on American shores. From the spirituals sprang not just their spiritual heir jubilee, but jazz and blues. And gospel music in its modern understanding morphed from the spirituals, the blues, jubilee and-of course-African rhythm.
What today's gospel music is and what it is becoming is part of the continuing evolution of African American music. Religion with rhythm."
440 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2004
4 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 26, 2022
To say that this book has been well-researched is quite the understatement. Illustrative of the scope of the book is the quotation from Henry David Thoreau that the author provides on the dedication page: When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times and to the latest.
Darden starts with the African roots of the music and continues through to the time the book was written. I was grossly ignorant of a great deal of the artists discussed, but the information was compelling, leaving me wanting to learn more. But the tidbits of information on those musicians and song writers I was already familiar with I found fascinating.
I had read recently that Harriet Tubman wrote countless hymns and spirituals, and wondered if any had been preserved. Darden reveals that “Go Down, Moses” became Tubman’s special song, and believed by some to have been written by her. As she was dying, in 1913, Tubman is said to have started conducting her own service, concluding with “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
The book gave me a desire to learn more about Colonel Thomas W. Higginson, the mentor and friend of Emily Dickinson, and read his writing. Tubman and Higginson were friends; Higginson was instrumental in spurring national interest in the music of the slaves. He took notes with careful descriptions of dozens of a variety of spirituals. These included how they were sung and when. His notes are used by researchers yet today.
In the second half of the nineteenth century the Fisk Jubilee Singers brought spirituals to the widespread attention of the American public. The group was made up of former slaves and the children of slaves. Fisk University in Nashville was one of seven colleges and schools of theology chartered by American Missionary Association of Albany, New York. A volunteer music teacher at Fisk, Union veteran George Leonard White, learned that many of the students were gifted singers. He chose some for special musical training. These started giving concerts and White got the idea of using them for fundraising for the college. The name settled on for the group was the Jubilee Singers. They eventually overcame the prejudices encountered on their tours and found enthusiastic audiences. They were endorsed by such luminaries as Henry Ward Beecher and Mark Twain, who in 1896 stated that “in the Jubilees and their songs, America has produced the perfectest flower of the ages.” On tour in the U.K., the Jubilee Singers gave a private concert for Queen Victoria.
In 1893 Bohemian composer Antonin Dvorak incorporated American folk music and spirituals into one of his symphonies, subtitling it “From the New World.” In one of Harper’s magazines, Dvorak stated that spirituals and native American chants “are indeed the most striking and appealing melodies that have yet been found on this side of the water.”
No doubt many present-day fans and singers in barbershop quartets do not know of their roots in the south among Blacks. Barbershops were owned and operated by black men and provided meeting places where music was both discussed and performed. Many of the early barbershop singers were barbers.
Bob Dylan cited Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers as his favorite “soul vocalist.” In 2003 his album “Gotta Serve Somebody—The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan” featured a rare duet on the part of Bob Dylan, with Mavis Staples. The song was “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking.”
Other topics covered in the book are the practice of “stealing songs,” when gospel songwriters at times resent so many other artists taking over their songs, mainstream artists, such as Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls, getting their start in gospel music and the practice of converting gospel hits into mainstream hits with altered lyrics.
Many black Christian singers have been admired by secular performers. The Beatles and Little Richard attended concerts by Alex Bradford. Billy Preston took Mick Jagger to hear James Cleveland.
I learned that poet Langston Hughes’s Broadway show, “Black Nativity,” was a source for rock musicals “Godspell” and “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”
One of the finest gospel concerts I have personally attended was that of Andrae Crouch and the Disciples. I learned that Crouch’s first group included Billy Preston and that the Disciples at one time included Sherman Andrus of the Imperials and Andrus, Blackwood and Company.
In an article in 1981 in a newspaper in Manchester, England, Mick Brown states of modern black gospel choirs that they are “gospel music at its most musically developed. . .In it one recognizes one of the cornerstones of rock ‘n’ roll, yet the music here bursts with a contagious sense of joy and celebration that much contemporary rock seems to have lost altogether.”
Darden points out the sense of mission that keeps gospel artists going while enduring infrequent airplay, low pay and sometimes hostile churches. Record company owner Alan Freeman said that he “absolutely loves the hearts of gospel artists. . .They are very clear about what they are doing and why. There is no conflict in the choices they’ve made, whether they’re barely making bills or they’re very successful. It’s the only form of music where the artist is truly committed to the music and the message.”
Darden starts with the African roots of the music and continues through to the time the book was written. I was grossly ignorant of a great deal of the artists discussed, but the information was compelling, leaving me wanting to learn more. But the tidbits of information on those musicians and song writers I was already familiar with I found fascinating.
I had read recently that Harriet Tubman wrote countless hymns and spirituals, and wondered if any had been preserved. Darden reveals that “Go Down, Moses” became Tubman’s special song, and believed by some to have been written by her. As she was dying, in 1913, Tubman is said to have started conducting her own service, concluding with “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
The book gave me a desire to learn more about Colonel Thomas W. Higginson, the mentor and friend of Emily Dickinson, and read his writing. Tubman and Higginson were friends; Higginson was instrumental in spurring national interest in the music of the slaves. He took notes with careful descriptions of dozens of a variety of spirituals. These included how they were sung and when. His notes are used by researchers yet today.
In the second half of the nineteenth century the Fisk Jubilee Singers brought spirituals to the widespread attention of the American public. The group was made up of former slaves and the children of slaves. Fisk University in Nashville was one of seven colleges and schools of theology chartered by American Missionary Association of Albany, New York. A volunteer music teacher at Fisk, Union veteran George Leonard White, learned that many of the students were gifted singers. He chose some for special musical training. These started giving concerts and White got the idea of using them for fundraising for the college. The name settled on for the group was the Jubilee Singers. They eventually overcame the prejudices encountered on their tours and found enthusiastic audiences. They were endorsed by such luminaries as Henry Ward Beecher and Mark Twain, who in 1896 stated that “in the Jubilees and their songs, America has produced the perfectest flower of the ages.” On tour in the U.K., the Jubilee Singers gave a private concert for Queen Victoria.
In 1893 Bohemian composer Antonin Dvorak incorporated American folk music and spirituals into one of his symphonies, subtitling it “From the New World.” In one of Harper’s magazines, Dvorak stated that spirituals and native American chants “are indeed the most striking and appealing melodies that have yet been found on this side of the water.”
No doubt many present-day fans and singers in barbershop quartets do not know of their roots in the south among Blacks. Barbershops were owned and operated by black men and provided meeting places where music was both discussed and performed. Many of the early barbershop singers were barbers.
Bob Dylan cited Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers as his favorite “soul vocalist.” In 2003 his album “Gotta Serve Somebody—The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan” featured a rare duet on the part of Bob Dylan, with Mavis Staples. The song was “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking.”
Other topics covered in the book are the practice of “stealing songs,” when gospel songwriters at times resent so many other artists taking over their songs, mainstream artists, such as Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls, getting their start in gospel music and the practice of converting gospel hits into mainstream hits with altered lyrics.
Many black Christian singers have been admired by secular performers. The Beatles and Little Richard attended concerts by Alex Bradford. Billy Preston took Mick Jagger to hear James Cleveland.
I learned that poet Langston Hughes’s Broadway show, “Black Nativity,” was a source for rock musicals “Godspell” and “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”
One of the finest gospel concerts I have personally attended was that of Andrae Crouch and the Disciples. I learned that Crouch’s first group included Billy Preston and that the Disciples at one time included Sherman Andrus of the Imperials and Andrus, Blackwood and Company.
In an article in 1981 in a newspaper in Manchester, England, Mick Brown states of modern black gospel choirs that they are “gospel music at its most musically developed. . .In it one recognizes one of the cornerstones of rock ‘n’ roll, yet the music here bursts with a contagious sense of joy and celebration that much contemporary rock seems to have lost altogether.”
Darden points out the sense of mission that keeps gospel artists going while enduring infrequent airplay, low pay and sometimes hostile churches. Record company owner Alan Freeman said that he “absolutely loves the hearts of gospel artists. . .They are very clear about what they are doing and why. There is no conflict in the choices they’ve made, whether they’re barely making bills or they’re very successful. It’s the only form of music where the artist is truly committed to the music and the message.”
January 22, 2015
I read this book because I had to. I'm not qualified to comment on how accurate or thorough this study is, but it is easy to read and some of the analysis is quite interesting.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews