Black Church Rumor

In 1992, Jet published “James Cleveland Infected L.A. Youth with HIV, $9 Mil. Lawsuit Claims,” which detailed how the Chicago-born gospel musician had not only allegedly sexually abused his foster son, Christopher B. Harris, but had also “[given] him the AIDS virus.” This article takes this incident of rumor or accusation as a critical opportunity to think about the archival reality of Black queer sexuality, on one hand, and sexual violence in Black gospel music history on the other. Using the legal documents from Christopher B. Harris v. Irwin Goldring as Special Administrator of the Estate of James Cleveland and commentary from Cleveland's contemporaries, it exhumes Cleveland from dusty church closets for consideration in the history of HIV and AIDS in African American Protestant church and gospel communities and in Black queer studies, ethnomusicology, and gender and sexuality studies. Further, it theorizes “Black church rumor” as a lens for Black queer religious studies and argues that Cleveland's perceived queer sexuality distracted from Harris's allegations of sexual abuse. Thus, it situates Cleveland—the person, the preacher, and the gospel legend—in the literature on “down low” sexuality and explicates the implications of Cleveland's legacy and role in Black gospel music production.

Falling Up

This article investigates melodic figures and harmonic sequences that miraculously only step up to illuminate an aesthetic lineage that connects gospel to electronic dance music. It argues that the synth-risers and ever-opening filters of contemporary euphoric rave music like happy-hardcore and uplifting-trance find precedence in compositional devices that made their way into funk/soul and disco/garage from Black gospel music, and that these gospel inventions were derived from the Afro-diasporic ring-shout. Cognitive linguistic and psychoacoustic theories premise an analytical framework for musical representations of endless ascent. Through close readings of representative recordings—a 1927 Pentecostal sermon by Reverend Sister Mary Nelson, James Cleveland’s “Peace Be Still,” Chic’s “Le Freak,” Trussel’s “Love Injection,” and DJ Hixxy’s remix of Paradise's “I See the Light”—the article examines various historical intersections with parlour music, European art music, and modal jazz, and suggests that musical ascent has a non-causal but, nevertheless, objective relationship with a type of spiritual transcendence.

“I’m Still Just Mahaly to You All”

The book concludes in 1955, which marked a seam in Jackson’s career. The year was notable for the release of her first Columbia recordings and the launch of her local television show, Mahalia Jackson Sings, but also for the more conspicuous necessity of maneuvering among rapidly diversifying audiences. Jackson made conscious efforts to maintain connections to her Chicago church base while being attentive to the reception of black gospel music by new white fans. Her growing celebrity was also indicative of the increasing expanse of black gospel more broadly, as groups like the Clara Ward Singers signaled that gospel was becoming a cultural phenomenon and a financial “bonanza.” Meanwhile, with national fame, Jackson was now embraced enthusiastically by her adopted hometown of Chicago and its new mayor Richard Daly. Still, what may have felt like a pinnacle at the end of 1955 was just a prelude to even greater triumphs that lay ahead.

Mountain Highs, Valley Lows

Since 2004, collaborative archiving of gospel music between institutions in higher education, community groups, and individual collectors has increased. Three university archive initiatives have emerged and engaged in various partnerships with gospel music heritage communities on regional and even national levels. Archives and libraries at UCLA, USC, and Baylor University have contributed greatly to the preservation of gospel music’s recorded and ephemeral past and to the documentation of contemporary performance traditions. While two of these initiatives have faced sustainability challenges, one has expanded its impact by partnering with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This chapter delineates key success strategies of the UCLA Gospel Archiving in Los Angeles Project, the Gospel Music History Archive of the University of Southern California, and the Baylor University Black Gospel Music Restoration Project; highlights accessibility and sustainability challenges; and illustrates the crucial role of technology in future archiving efforts.

“Yes, [Gospel] Is Real”: Half a Century with Chicago's Martin and Morris Company

The Martin and Morris Music Studio (MMMS) imprint permeated the first fifty years of black gospel music. Jointly owned by singer/impresaria Sallie Martin (1895/6–1988) and composer/arranger/pianist/organist Kenneth Morris (1917–88), the MMMS delivered gospel songs to an eager public and offered ordinary Americans the chance to see their names in print as author or composer on the cover of a gospel octavo, copies of which could then be sold to benefit that same ordinary American. Their influence extended far beyond that service, however. Martin and her Singers performed and popularized music bearing the MMMS imprint in venues ranging from small churches in the Deep South to national conventions in Washington, D.C., and widened circulation of MMMS music via Los Angeles recording studios. The unprecedented accomplishments of the MMMS, active from 1940 to 1993, have not been fully explored. Relying on transcribed interviews of the owners by Bernice Johnson Reagon, James Standifer, and others, accounts in historical newspapers, and company archives, this article addresses that void. The centrality of the MMMS in twentieth-century gospel of all types is clarified through examination of contexts for black-owned music publishing in the last century, the owners’ early business models, and their changing roles in the creation, publication, popularization, and dissemination of gospel music for more than fifty years.

Black Gospel Choral Music

This chapter examines Black gospel music with an emphasis on choral music, and explores this form of American sacred music through sociological theory, contact theory, and multicultural lenses. Such perspectives will provide insights into ways to listen to, prepare, and perform Black gospel music more fully in a variety of settings; from church to secular classrooms. This multifaceted discussion examines the impact of nonmusical experiences on our engagement with unfamiliar music. It also explores how thoughts, individual agency, identity, American history, racial dynamics, religion, governmental policies, and our interpretation of the separation of church and state impact our agency to teach and program Black gospel music. Choral conductors, individual singers, and vocal ensemble participants will be able to understand how their nonmusical experiences impact their decisions regarding the choral music they explore.

Holiness and Worldliness

What was truly distinctive about the black Gospel music style of the Sanctified Church was its extensive use of musical instruments previously associated with “the world.” Yet, this fact presents a theological conundrum. The very churches that were so enthusiastically “embracing” the Gospel style were, at the same time, ardently emphasizing strict moral living and the repudiation of all things carnal. In this article, I suggest lines of theological reasoning that may have informed early black Holiness and pentecostal Christians in their widespread liturgical use of the Gospel style. Drawing on primary source material from COGIC founding Bishop Charles Mason, I expand Lawrence Levine’s model of the relationship between early black Sanctified churches and the secular black musical world and argue that a more nuanced conception of the Christ-world relation than is generally assumed may have undergirded Sanctified development of early Gospel music.

Multiple Meanings: The Role of Black Gospel in an Interracial and Multi-Ethnic Edmonton Church

This paper examines the process by which Black gospel music (performed according to aesthetic standards determined by African Americans) has become a site of meaning for both Black and White congregants at Edmonton Community Worship Hour, a church with an interracial and multi-ethnic ministry. Certain "transformations" (or "inversions") are at play in the conceptual systems of the people who attend; each individual has disparate, though intersecting, webs of meaning which become operational in a cross-cultural setting, relating to: the music itself, the method of worship, and the interpersonal relationships of the church's Black majority and White minority.

“I Got That Something That Makes Me Want to Shout”: James Brown, Religion, and Gospel Music in Augusta, Georgia

Using ethnographic and archival data, this article explores aspects of global superstar James Brown's participation in the black gospel music community of Augusta, Georgia, from the 1980s until his death in 2006. Using rare footage of Brown performing sacred music on a local gospel music television program, the article builds on scholars’ longtime recognition of Brown's engagement with black sacred song by engaging the singer's negotiation of sacred and secular musical and cultural boundaries from the perspective of his gospel performances. The article also examines Brown's personal relationships with local gospel musicians, ultimately arguing that his involvement with Augusta's gospel tradition near the end of his life provided Brown with an alternative social space for articulating a musical and personal identity somewhat separate from his mainstream media image.