GOSPEL SONGS---3

blues, Ma Rainey, teacher of Bessie Smith. When Dorsey became a religious man and began to write songs for the church, he carried over into these new songs the flavor of the blues.
Musicologists state that church music is usually a half century behind secular music. In gospel music there is no such lag. Although religious in mood and meaning, it is very much of today in its melodic flavors, its driving beat, its popular appeal, and its sexual use of contemporary idioms.

Gospel music is music to be shouted to, to move to, and in which to become yourself a participant. Gospel singers often do a sort of religious dance (although the feet must never cross, for then it would become the devil's dance) in which they move energetically to the rhythms. Like Spanish flamenco, both gospel singing and gospel dancing have certain set patterns, but within these patterns a wild and wonderful estacy may develop, an estacy "out of this world." The thing to do when you hear gospel music, is to let yourself go with it.

Written especially for the Festival of Two Worlds, this program by the author of BLACK NATIVITY, New York, April 14, 1968.

Copy sent:

Mr. Fitzgerald
Mrs. Griner
Mrs. Matz

GOSPEL SONGS AND GOSPEL SINGING

by
Langston Hughes

The first thing that one should know about gospel songs
is that they are not spirituals. The spirituals are the old
anonymous songs of the Negro people dating from the days of
slavery. They are folk songs, and nobody knows who made them
up. Go Down, Moses, or Dean River, or All God's Chillum Get
Kings have no known individual authorship. On the other hand,
gospel songs are composed songs. They are contemporary songs
which borrow from the spirituals, from blues, and even from
jazz. Therefore they have a folk flavor, but in the true
sense, they are not folk songs. Most of them are written and
copyrighted by men and women living today---Alex Bradford,
Clara Ward, Jobe Huntley and others.

Gospel singing, however, is folk singing rooted in the
Negro masses, its style created by the dark millions who make
up the congregations where gospel songs are a part of the services.
These songs originated in the humbler Negro churches, not in the
long established orthodox sects like the Methodist, Episcopalian,
or Lutheran with their set hymns. Gospel singing is free-wheeling
and free-swinging. The Holiness churches, the Sanctified churches
and the independent sects where gospel singing predominates in the
United States are now the last refuge of pure Negro folk singing.

FINAL revised copy
for complete program.

4th draft,
april 16,
1962

newyork

Langston Hughes

GOSPEL SONGS - 2

The spirituals as a folk form have disappeared, and their singing has become arranged, standardized and concertized by Marian Anderson, the Robert Shaw Chorale, Harry Belafonte and other artists of the entertainment world. The blues have become the property of Hollywood and Broadway, commercial bands and night clubs. Only the gospel songs and gospel singers remain almost entirely in the hands of the Negro people, rooted in the mass Negro churches, the songs sung in uninhibited Negro fashion, not yet subjected to formal arrangements, rigid notation, or commercial gimmicks for the sake of record sales or radio commercials.

Gospel singers still sing as they feel like singing, varying and improvising at will, repeating as much and as long as they choose, allowing themselves at times to be entirely carried away by rhythm or words, or both. When singing in churches, often even professional gospel groups become so completely identified with their audiences that guest-singers and host-congregations become one in song and ecstasy, in foot-tapping and hand-clapping, in praise and thanksgiving. Gospel songs are in general happy songs, praise-songs, shouting songs, celebrating the greatness and glory of God and affirming His loving way with men. When gospel singers sing the old spirituals or transform traditional hymns, as they frequently do, they rubus them with a new leaping life, a fresh assurance that the promise of salvation is good, and an indication that even if hell is a yawning pit, its dangers may nevertheless be sung in happy fashion.

GOSPEL SONGS—3

Thomas A. Dorsey of Chicago was the first great composer of
gospel songs. In his youth more than a quarter of a century ago,
Dorsey was the pianist-composer for the famous singer of blues,
Fa Rainey, teacher of Bessie Smith. When Dorsey became a religious
man and began to write songs for the church, he carried over into
his new songs the flavor of the blues. Musicologists state that
church music is usually a half century behind secular music. In
gospel music there is no such lag. Although religious in mood and
meaning, it is very much of today in its melodic flavors, its
driving beat, its popular appeal, and its sexual use of contemporary
idiosyncrasies.

Gospel music is music to be shouted to, to move to, and in
which to become yourself a participant. Gospel singers often do
a sort of religious dance (although the feet must never cross,
for then it would become the devil's dance) in which they move
energetically to the rhythms. Like Spanish flamenco, both gospel
singing and gospel dancing have certain set patterns, but within
those patterns a wild and wonderful ecstacy may develop, an ecstacy
"out of this world." The thing to do when you hear gospel music
is to let yourself go with it.

Written by the author of
BLACK NATIVITY especially
for the Festival of Two
Worlds program.