Description
Book SynopsisPeople 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 D
Trade Review"'An impassioned and mostly comprehensive overview' The Observer '...a scholarly yet extremely readable book...' Morning Star "Darden's passion keeps the words flowing through sections on styles and social movements, as well as personal narratives and musical analyses...With a through discography, notes and references, this is an essential read for those faithful to American religion, rhythm, or both." Charleston Post and Courier"
Table of ContentsPreface; Chapter 1: Why Gospel Music?; Chapter 2: Gospel's African Roots; Chapter 3: The Rise of Spirituals in North America; Chapter 4: What Spirituals Are, What Spirituals Mean; Chapter 5: The American Civil War; Chapter 6: Reconstruction, The Jubilee Singers, and Minstrelsy; Chapter 7: The Foundations of Gospel: The Black Exodus, Barbershop Quartets, the Pentecostals, and Jack-Leg Preachers; Chapter 8: The Fathers of Gospel: William H. Sherwood, Charles A. Tindley, and Thomas A. Dorsey; Chapter 9: Chicago and the Rise of Gospel Music; Chapter 10: Three Divas: Rosetta Tharpe, Clara Ward, and Mahalia Jackson; Chapter 11: The Great Gospel Groups: Five Unforgettable Voices; Chapter 12: Gospel on the Freedom Highway; Chapter 13: Gospel's Evolution: From Alex Bradford to James Cleveland to Andrae Crouch; Chapter 14: The Last Great Male Quartets; Chapter 15: Contemporary Gospel: Six Defining Voices; Discography; Index.
