1969 — Gospel Makes Great Industry Strides
This article originally appeared on Billboard on August 16th, 1969
GOSPEL MUSIC, songs with lyrics derived from the Old and New Testaments, a music with its roots in church choirs, is one of the oldest forms of music. In terms of contemporary popular music, it is also one of the most influential. Many popular performers got their start in gospel. Two of the best known are preacher's daughter Aretha Franklin, and rock immortal Sam Cooke. In addition, gospel influence is found in the work of almost every contemporary popular performer. From Johnny Cash to Dionne Warwick to John Coltrane to the Beatles, religious influence in music and in content is found.
It is perhaps paradoxical then, that 1969 should be referred to as a year when gospel is making great strides. It is also a little deceptive for in its purest sense gospel is not a field whose success can be judged by commercial standards alone (implicit in many religious teachings is the insignificance of worldly wealth). Nevertheless it is indisputable that in recent months, gospel has begun to emerge from the outskirts of the music world. Until recently it has been a relatively obscure musical cult, spawning many but in itself appealing to a faithful and widespread but small audience while gospel "stars" like James Cleveland or the Statesmen quartet remained largely unknown to the mass market.
It is impossible to discuss gospel music without specifying what kind. The only thing that the word "gospel" implies is a connection to any of the many Christian churches in this country. The field divides itself into two very separate entities differing from each other culturally and musically. One of them is black or "soul" gospel, which comes our of black churches and has influenced virtually every major R&B artist. The music has the same African routes.
Soul gospel fans are found wherever there are R&B fans: the major cities, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Nashville, Baltimore and throughout the south. In many of those areas there are strictly gospel radio stations, while in others, R&B stations devote part of their airtime to gospel programming.
On the other side of the gospel spectrum is white or country gospel, corresponding in sound and appeal to the growing country market. There is scarcely a country artist who has not put out an album of hymns at one time or another. Two of the biggest, Johnny Cash (The Holy Land) and Tammy Wynette (Inspiration) have had good activity on the pop chart with such material this year. Country gospel, aided by the fledgling Gospel Music Association is becoming a substantial field.
The growth of the GMA is one of the evidences of growing gospel sales strength that has taken place in the last year. Another is the growing number of gospel stations, black and white, that are on the air.
Oh Happy Day
And no account of gospel in the last few months would be complete without mention of 'Oh Happy Day' which has stirred controversy throughout the black gospel world while capturing the fancy of the general public and becoming gospel's first RIAA certified million dollar record.
Another sign of a growing interest in gospel was the move of two major record companies previously uninvolved in the field to come out with gospel series.
The first was Buddah records who added to their "360 degree sound" when they came out with the "Sunday Series" as well as their distribution of the smash Edwin Hawkins Singers work. The other was Jubilee records who came out with an 11 album release earlier in the year complete with a publicity sweep through the south called the "Jubilee Gospel Train." The Jubilee release consisted mainly of previously unrecorded gospel artists, but included Novella Williams, Gospel Majors of Louisville and King Solomon's Choir. The Buddah release included albums by the Five Blind Boys, The Harmonizers, and The Staple Singers.
Both of these newcomers dealt in the soul gospel line. Scarcely a newcomer to the field is the exclusively soul gospel Savoy Records of New Jersey.
James Cleveland
Savoy has some of the biggest names in the soul gospel business including James Cleveland, Dorothy Norwood and the Angelic Choir. Other artists recording for the label are the Davis Sister who did 'Wait a Little Longer' and Charles Banks. James Cleveland is probably the biggest draw and the most loved gospel soloist around. While someone like Mahalia Jackson (one of the few who has made the jump to a popular audience without a sacrifice in her content) restricts her performances to large public auditoriums, Cleveland who has comparable popularity in gospel areas, will frequently play a small town church. By far his best selling record to date is Peace Be Still which has become a gospel classic, and still sells at the rate of 50,000 copies a year. Dorothy Norwood whose big hit was 'The Denied Mother', is the label's leading female soloist. Her most recent single is 'The Prescription' which is a story-telling song. The Angelic Choir has backed up both artists, as well as recording by themselves. They backed up Cleveland on 'Peace Be Still' and 'Bread of Heaven' and currently have 'He's Sweet I Know'. Another choir recording with Savoy is the Southern California Community Choir whose 'Come See About Me' featuring Cleveland is their current release.
Another major gospel label is Peacock, the gospel branch of Duke which is an R&B company. Some of their top artists are Rev. Julius Cheeks Jackson and the Sensational Nightingales, the Jackson Southernaires, and the Mighty Clouds of Joy, They also have Rev. Cleophus Robinson whose LP He Did It All, a collection of sermonettes and music is one of their best selling albums.
Other of their top albums are: The Loving Sisters Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Presenting the St. Matthews Baptist Church Choir, and the Brooklyn Skyways, The Unbelieving Man. The biggest single for Peacock this year was 'Too Late' by the Jackson Southernaires.
Hob is the gospel label of Scepter records, and in recent years it has become a major gospel force. Some of their major choirs are the New Hope Baptist Church Young Adult Choir which is directed by Ann Moss of the Drinkard sisters (Cissy Drinkard of the Sweet Inspirations also came from that group), the Thompson Community Singers, who are known for 'I'll Trade a Lifetime' which was recorded with Rev. Milton Branson, and the Brockington Ensemble who came out with a version of 'Oh Happy Day' around the same time as the Pavillion smash. Other top Hob artists are Albertina Walker and the Caravans, the Swan Silvertones, who did 'Only Believe' and Evangelist Shirley Caesar whose 'Don't Drive Your Mama Away' was a major gospel hit.
Nashboro is an exclusively gospel company whose top artists include The Brooklyn Allstars who are known for 'He Said He Would Move', Dorothy Love, The Swanee Quartet, the Original Gospel Harmonettes, and the Consolers who recorded 'Lord Bring Me Down'.
The United Artists subsidiary Veep, primarily on R&B Label has recorded gospel acts as well. Their leading soul gospel group is the Robert Patterson Singers who have an international reputation. Their current LP is Live In Germany.
Chess records has a gospel Line also. They have the Chicago quartet The Soulsters (Sam Cooke's first group) who now have a song called 'Soul Is In But Gospel Is Out of Sight', The Majestic Choir, who have recorded 'Let's All Walk a Little Bit Prouder', the Violinaires, and Gene Vialli, a white singer who has a song called 'What Color Is God?'.
"Gos-Pop"
Ralph Bass of Chess is not at all surprised by the growing commercial success of gospel. For years he has been talking about the possibility of what he calls "Gos-Pop," gospel-oriented music with a mass popular appeal. There are a few artists who have become popular through gospel. The most prominent of these is Mahalia Jackson; others are Clara Ward and the Staple Singers, Bass believes that people now have the need for the kind of spiritual message that gospel provides, and that if presented correctly, gospel offers great appeal for the mass market. This opinion is shared by many others in the soul-gospel business who feel it is one of the most challenging musical fields.
Others, however, view commercialization with disdain, feeling that using the sacred religious message for profit is a perversion of what is holy. They question the motives of gospel entertainers who would perform in a nightclub. The conflict between those who are in it for completely religious reasons and those who hope to make it a thriving commercial entity came to a head with the controversy surrounding 'Oh Happy Day'. It was originally part of an album, recorded strictly for members of the church, and produced by LaMont Bench who owns a small recording company in Oakland, for the Northern State California Youth Choir. Bench later got permission from Edwin Hawkins, leader of the choir to press 1,000 additional albums for commercial sale. By coincidence, Abe (Voco) Kesh, disk jockey for San Francisco underground station KSAN happened to hear it and started programming the track. In the beginning it was also played by KOIT, an automated FM San Francisco station. The embryonic smash was first played in the east by Joe Bostic, disk jockey for New York R&B station WLIB on his gospel show. Bostic also handled the east coast distribution of the album in its pre-Buddah days. Other gospel-oriented disk jockeys on the east coast who played the disk as early as February were Joe Crane (WNJR-Newark), Jimmy Byrd (WILD-Boston), and Pauline Wells (WSID-Baltimore).
Wherever the disk was played there was immediate reaction, and this was noted by San Francisco disk savant Bill Gavin in his weekly newsletter. The album was listed as "New Action" in Billboard, and in mid-March as Top 40 radio in San Francisco KYA went on the cut, there was a sudden migration westward of representatives of major record companies in an effort to gain the distribution rights for the record. Out of all the cloak and dagger activity came Neil Bogart of Buddah Records with the rights to the album Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord and an announcement of the release of the single, 'Oh Happy Day', both of which would remain on Bench's Pavillion Label. The name of the choir was then changed to the Edwin Hawkins Singers.
Baptist Hymnal
The song 'Oh Happy Day' dates back to 1755 when it was written by Phillip Doddidge: it was revised by E. F. Rimbault in 1855 and is included in the Baptist Standard Hymnal. The single was rushed by Buddah to radio stations all over the country and the single received a Top 20 pick in the April 19, 1969, issue of Billboard. As well as being a sales success, (both the single and the album have been certified as million sellers) the song received widespread airplay on Top 40, R&B, and middle of the road stations, and the song became one of the most recorded of the year.
In addition to the Brockington Ensemble version already mentioned there have been instrumental interpretations by the Pat Revillot Exchange on SSS Int'l and Billy Mitchell on Calla and country versions by Skip Gibbs on Honor Brigade and the Statler Brothers on Columbia to name just a few.
There are a few trends that have developed in the soul gospel field in the last year; one is a reflection of the industry wide phenomenon of the switch from singles to albums; the other is a swing away from the old quartet sound to that of the big choir backed by a soloist. The success of the Hawkins Choir (which featured the solo work of Dorothy Morrison) is a result rather than a cause of this trend. The controversy about the record involved the way it was programmed and the perennial dispute between the purists and those who are eager for gospel's commercial growth. The objection was, that to program a gospel song next to secular rock and roll or R&B material was tasteless and sacrilegious. The answer was that this was an ideal opportunity to reach those who would otherwise not hear the message.
Two current soul gospel tunes that have started to make inroads on the R&B and pop markets are Rev. Milton Branson's 'I'll Trade a Lifetime' which is on most R&B stations in Chicago, and 'Preacher Man' by the Gospelaires which is getting Top 40 play in New Brunswick, Canada.
Whatever the outcome of all this programming controversy is and regardless of the future effect gospel has on the pop market, there is little doubt that gospel flavored records of the future will endlessly be heralded by A&R men, promo men, record companies and disk jockeys alike as another 'Oh Happy Day'.
But if the shattering success of 'Oh Happy Day' caused a ripple through the soul-gospel world, it was barely noticed on the country-gospel front. This is with good reason, for the sound of it is just as remote from country-gospel as any other R&B hit. But despite the lack of comparably outstanding success, the country-gospel movement, and it is a movement, is making more gradual but perhaps more lasting progress. This is almost entirely due to the existence of the Gospel Music Association (GMA), which though only a few years old has the undivided loyalty of virtually everyone in the business. Under the leadership of SESAC's W.F. (Jim) Myers, the organisation has in the last year announced plans for its first annual award ceremony, similar in structure to the NARAS awards. The awards will be given coinciding with the National Quartet Convention in Memphis in early October, and will honor excellence in recorded gospel music during the last year. Other achievements of the GMA in the past year have been the publication of a monthly newspaper Good News, and a phenomenal growth in membership, particularly in the last few months.
Quartet Predominant
The quartet is still the predominant form of country-gospel music and the deans of the quartets, both of whom have been performing for more than 20 years, both of whom are past Grammy winners, and both of whom record for RCA, are the Blackwood Brothers and the Statesmen Quartet.
When they first started, their slick professionalism captured the southern audiences as a vivid contrast to the local family groups that had dominated the scene. As the country-gospel sound has become more widespread, these two groups, while still maintaining popularity, no longer have the domination that they once enjoyed. The shift has been back to the family groups, on one hand, and to younger more currently oriented groups, on the other.
Undisputed king of the family groups is The Happy Goodman Family who won the Grammy award this year for the best gospel performance. They record for Word records who are one of the biggest manufacturers of religious records in the world. The Goodmans are led by Sam Goodman, and Rusty Goodman who writes much of the group's material. They represent the best of the old style family groups. Other popular family groups are the LeFevres who are one of the oldest family groups around in terms of tenure, and the Stamps Quartet who are a mixture of the young and old, and are led by J.D. Sumnar. The fourth major family group is The Speer Family, who record for Heart Warming. Another important family group who record for Heart Warming are The Rambos. They consist of Buck Rambo, who is a country oriented songwriter, Reba Rambo, who often performs contemporary material, and Dottie Rambo, who won a Grammy this year for an album she recorded by herself called It's the Soul of Me.
The younger gospel groups have made several innovations which have been well received, particularly by young audiences. In concert, gospel acts will no longer be tied down to a fixed microphone or a restrictive format.
Fold-Out Covers
Gospel LP's will now have a fold-out cover with the same sales appeal of a pop album. And gradually it's paying off. The Oak Ridge Boys are a young group with an old name. They appear on the TV show It's Happening and have been successful with their updating of the old song 'Jesus Is Coming Soon'. The Oak Ridge Boys record for Heart Warming. Heart Warming is a subsidiary of Benson publishing and under the leadership of Bob Benson and Bob McKenzie it has been thriving. Another major Heart Warming act is the Imperials, a polished young group who have made several TV appearances whose best known works are 'Love Is the Thing' and 'He Touched Me'. Canaan records is the Gospel label of Word. While Word's catalogue consists primarily of sacred song, Canaan consists of more commercial, rhythm oriented gospel material. Some of Canaan's biggest acts are the Thrasher Brothers, The Florida Boys, who are country style, The Dixie Echoes, The Blue Ridge Quartet, and Stevie Sanders, who at the age of 16 is well on his way to gospel stardom. Sing-Skylite, are the two labels owned by Joel Gentry and centered in Nashville. Recording for them are the aforementioned Stamps Quartet, and the LeFevres (although they recently switched to Canaan) as well as the Swanee River Boys, The Rebels Quartet, and the Smitty Gatlin Trio. No account of gospel talent would be complete without mention of Gov. Jimmie Davis, writer of 'You Are My Sunshine', who now does exclusively gospel material and records for Decca. Other noteworthy gospel talents are the Chuck Wagon Gang who are on Columbia, The Couriers, and the Vicounts who are on Hymntone, and the McDuff Brothers who record for Zondervan.
Organization
One of the problems that used to plague all kinds of gospel performers was lack of organization. Often a group would perform to a packed house, and when the time came to be paid the money wasn't there. In country-gospel at least, this problem has been largely rectified by Don Light, former Billboard writer who a few years ago set up a gospel talent agency in Nashville. Among the gospel luminaries under contract to him are Stevie Sanders, The Rambos, The Happy Goodmans and the Florida Boys. The cohesion which organizations like Light Talent and the GMA have given to country-gospel should be evidence enough for those in the soul gospel field to do likewise.
The problem of commercialization is in the minds of anyone involved in the gospel field. While everyone is anxious to make money and to expand the following of the material, many fear that the message often gets lost along the way. Jim Myers, president of the GMA and officer of SESAC disagrees. He has written "as long as the Word remains pure — the medium will sustain itself." If the past several months are any sign of things to come, it appears that the not too distant future will provide a 'Happy Day' for everyone involved with gospel. But as Myers has written, "I never doubted for a single moment that the Gospel Music Association would land on dead center — we've got God on our side."
