{"id":9585,"date":"2017-07-16T07:13:53","date_gmt":"2017-07-16T07:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9585"},"modified":"2017-07-17T07:17:19","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T07:17:19","slug":"when-gospel-sermons-came-on-the-phonograph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/when-gospel-sermons-came-on-the-phonograph\/","title":{"rendered":"When gospel sermons came on the phonograph"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jerry Zolten<\/a>, Pennsylvania State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The first truly African-American musical form, the \u201cSpirituals,\u201d took shape in the 17th and 18th centuries within the generations of slaves born into the tough American experience. Music was a daily part of their survival and sustenance.<\/p>\n

Spirituals were sung \u201ca cappella,\u201d that is, without instrumental accompaniment. Voices were blended over rhythms provided by clapping hands, stamping feet and makeshift percussion. The words and melodies were improvised, not written down and never sung the same way twice. The singers remained untrained in the formalities of music. <\/p>\n

Anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston<\/a> attributed the power and beauty of spirituals to these very qualities. As she wrote<\/a>, <\/p>\n

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\u201cIts truth dies under training like flowers under hot water.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

These early songs, over a hundred or more years later, gave rise to 20th century gospel music as well as secular genres including blues and jazz, R&B (rhythm and blues) and doo-wop, a style of \u201850s vocal group pop. <\/p>\n

As an author of a book on the gospel canon, Great God A\u2019Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music<\/a>, I have been particularly drawn to a compelling but lesser known outgrowth of the spiritual tradition \u2013 the African-American \u201cfolk\u201d preachers.<\/p>\n

These folk preachers blended homespun sermon and song to offer life lessons on how to survive in a world of inequality and virulent racism.<\/p>\n

Recording sermons<\/h2>\n
\n \"\"
\n A phonograph.<\/span>
\n Javier Kohen<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the folk preachers may have perfected their preaching skills in Southern churches, they broadened their reach through phonographs records. From the mid-1920s well into the Depression, there were roughly 85 preachers<\/a> whose hundreds of singing sermons were recorded and heard<\/a> throughout the black community nationwide via 78-rpm records. <\/p>\n

On their records \u2013 none longer than three minutes in duration \u2013 the preachers, in \u201ccall and response\u201d with a handful of select \u201csanctified\u201d congregants, would sing and opine in rhythm and rhyme about everyday realities like \u201calways pay your furniture man\u201d<\/a> or \u201cis there harm in singing the blues?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Their records were advertised<\/a> in nationally distributed black newspapers, such as The Pittsburgh Courier and The Chicago Defender. Their names were famous within the African-American community and some of the better sellers included Rev. J. C. Burnett, Rev. T.N.T. Burton, Rev. A.W. Nix, and Rev. Sundown Jesse. The most prolific of all was Rev. J. M. Gates of Atlanta, Georgia. His more than a hundred sermons were released on a variety of labels \u2013 Paramount, Columbia, Vocalion, Okeh, and Victor \u2013 that specialized in records that catered to \u201crace.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

The case of Rev. Gates<\/h2>\n

What gave Gates prominence, besides his stellar performances, were his sensational titles, many drawn from Biblical verse, others from African-American vernacular. The titles enticed people to buy the record to find out more.<\/p>\n

\u201cDead Cat on the Line\u201d was Rev. Gates taking on marriage infidelity. He opened the sermon by saying,<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf a child is no way like his father, there\u2019s a dead cat on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

His reference was to a time when a cat might get up on the power lines and die from electrocution, cutting off telegraph signals so no messages could get through. The phrase meant \u201cwe\u2019re not communicating here.\u201d But with the dead cat festering up there, Gates was also alluding to the problems of infidelity. <\/p>\n

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