People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music

Just started in and I can tell already this will become a classic book for learning about a great American art form.Make sure to have your trained ants handy however as the print is incredibly small.

Really good treatment of. The subject.

This book is a work of art to say the least! I have read many books on the subject including Anthony Heilbut's influential study, 'Good News and Bad Times,' and nothing came even close to the historical accuracy and wonderful writing style of this book! Mr. Darden is an extremely good writer and a very learned Gospel historian. This book is highly recommended.

Even this book is not exactly what I expected in terms of academic study, I think it's useful as a first introduction to the theme.

With some reservations (I heaven't read the whole book yet) but the impression I get is that this book is a pretty unambitious cronicling of the gospel phenomenon with no particular focus whatsoever. What it teaches you is pretty much the same as you were told in secondary school, nothing new except for volume. An epigram with a pretty strongminded citation about gospel from black theologian James Cone is left uncommented in the general stream of "facts". The same goes for his use of Mark Anthony Neal's "One Diaspora Under the Groove" a piece he wrote about Kirk Freanklin's and God's Property's hit "Stomp" in "What the Music Said". It may sound interesting to cite black academics who's supposed to know black people, but the stringing together of various sources is done pretty uncritically, as if they were all equally meaningful.The author (who's written a host of books covering everything from golf to christian businessmen) pretty much says it all in the preface: "I was interested in the who, what, where, and when. I was fascinated by the why and how of gospel. I don't think I fully answered any of my questions. But I had a wonderful time trying."This is not a recomended book for academic students of gospel music, unless you're studying the literature itself. It is not either a book i would recomend for the fan of today's gospel music. Those who are particularly interested have probably read it all already in magazones or at various websites. I guess this book is mostly for the (not all too puristic blues or) "roots" audience , but to them I would rather recomend Anthony Heilbuts fabulous book. The Gospel Sound. Much more fun, and definately a more meaningful reading of gospel.Best recent academic treatises of gospel are: "Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age" by Jerma A. Jackson and "Fire in My Bones: Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in African American Gospel" by Glenn Hinson.The book most likely to appeal to listeners of todays gospel music (except for artist biographies of the Williams Brothers, Shirley Caesar and the like) is All Music Guide contributor and Capital Entertainment founder Bill Carpenters "Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia" coming out this year.

The book arrived in perfect condition. Thanks for helping me reach my educational goals.

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.”

Check out "The Gospel Sound" by Tony Heilbut. In my opinion, this is the definitive work on black Gospel Music. The author is intimately familiar with the subject and the artists. His love and respect is deep and the writing sings right off the pages. It's a beautiful book, one of the best at capturing the soul of original American Music.