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GOODSON, Albert A. b. Los Angeles, October 1933; d. Los Angeles, December 2003. Goodson was brought up in the Pentecostal church. At the age of twelve he joined St Paul Baptist Church where he apparently received his only formal musical training, and was introduced to gospel music by the church's director of music, J. Earle Hines (1916-60) and pianist Gwendolyn Cooper-Lightner (1925-1999), who in 1946 founded the church's Echoes of Eden Choir, and with others established St Paul's as a center...
BRUMLEY, Albert Edward. b. near Spiro, Oklahoma, 29 October 1905; d. Powell, Missouri, 15 November 1977. Brumley was born on a cotton farm. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas notes: 'Music, both sacred and secular, formed an important part of Brumley's childhood. His parents were firmly committed Campbellite Protestants, [whose worship excluded instruments] but his father was also a noted fiddler, and his mother enjoyed singing parlor songs. Music was integral to the family's weekly church gatherings...
All to Jesus I surrender. Judson W. Van De Venter* (1855-1939).
Van De Venter was torn between his ambition to be a great artist, and the call to be an evangelist. While supporting himself by teaching art in Pennsylvania, he resisted the encouragement of those who thought he should be an evangelist. The hymn was written 'in memory of the time, when, after a long struggle, I had surrendered and dedicated my life to active Christian service' (Reynolds, 1964, p. 13). The word 'in memory of a time'...
All, yes, all I give to Jesus. Jonathan Burtch Atchinson* (1840-1882).
First published in Triumphant Songs No. 2 (Chicago: the Edwin O. Excell Co., 1889), with a tune by Edwin O. Excell* named ESCONDIDO. It was headed 'Dedicated to the “Deaconesses” of America' (Deaconesses were active in several churches and hospitals in the 1880s and 1890s). It had four stanzas:
All, yes, all I give to Jesus, It belongs to Him; All my heart I give to Jesus It belongs to Him; Evermore to be His dwelling,...
Almost persuaded now to believe. Philip P. Bliss* (1838-1876)
According to Taylor (1989, p. 7) this was first published in The Charm: A Collection of Sunday School Music (Chicago, 1871). JJ, p. 150, quotes a source to the effect that it was inspired by a sermon from a Revd Brundage, who said, 'He who is almost persuaded is almost saved, but to be almost saved is to be entirely lost.'
The hymn is in three stanzas, sometimes printed with an abundance of quotation marks, which increases the drama....
CROUCH, Andraé Edward. b. San Francisco, California, 1 July 1942; d. Los Angeles, California, 8 January 2015. Andraé Crouch began performing as a teenager in his church, directed a choir at a Teen Challenge drug rehabilitation center, and in 1960 formed a singing group, the COGICS, for his Church of God in Christ denomination (Holiness/Pentecostal). He studied at the L.I.F.E. Bible College and Valley Junior College in Los Angeles where in 1965 he founded the 'Andraé Crouch and the Disciples'...
MIEIR, Audrey Mae (neé Wagner). b. Leechburg, Pennsylvania, 12 May 1916; d. Irvine, California, 5 November 1996. Audrey Wagner was educated at the L.I.F.E. Bible College (Meridian, Idaho). As a young woman, she moved to California where she was influenced by Aimee Semple McPherson (1890–1944), founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. She married Charles Brooks Mieir (1911-1996), and was ordained to the Gospel ministry of the Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1937.
She...
CHRISTIANSEN, Avis Burgeson. b. Chicago, 11 October 1895; d. 14 January 1985. She was a member of the Moody Church in Chicago, and married Ernest C. Christiansen, vice-president of the Moody Bible Institute. Her numerous hymns, the earliest in collaboration with Daniel B. Towner*, appeared in Tabernacle Praises (Chicago, 1916). They are characteristic of early 20th-century Gospel hymnody, with a concentration on the love of Jesus and the hope of heaven. She also wrote under pseudonyms: Avis...
ACKLEY, Bentley D. b. Bradford, Pennsylvania, 27 September 1872; d. Winona Lake, Indiana, 3 September 1958. Rising to prominence as pianist for the Billy Sunday and Homer A. Rodeheaver* revival meetings, B. D. Ackley became a prolific composer of gospel songs and editor of gospel hymnals. He was born into a family of musicians in Bradford, Pennsylvania, including his younger brother Alfred Ackley*, who also became a gospel song composer. Their father, Stanley Ackley, served as a Methodist...
Gaither, Bill (William James). b. Alexandria, Indiana, 28 March 1936. Gaither was one of four children of the marriage of George W. (1913-2005) and Lela (née Hartwell) (1914-2001). The farming family attended the Church of God in Alexandria, a restoration group with Wesleyan holiness roots headquartered in Anderson, Indiana, (not related to Pentecostal denominations with the same name). Early on Gaither studied piano and organ, 'performing wherever he could in recitals and as an accompanist'...
BROWN, Brenton. b. Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 1 July 1973. Raised in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, Brown attended South African College Schools, studied law at the University of Cape Town, and then received a Rhodes Scholarship to study PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at the University of Oxford (1996-98), where he also received a one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Theology (1998-99).
Brown's involvement in worship leadership began during his time at the University of Cape Town,...
Brightly beams our Father's mercy. Philip P. Bliss* (1838-1876).
First published in The Charm, a collection of Sunday School music (Cincinnati, 1871), with the heading 'Let the Lower Lights be Burning'. Like a number of Gospel hymns, this was based on an anecdote (cf. 'Ho! my comrades, see the signal'*). In this case it was told and moralised by Dwight L. Moody* and versified by Bliss. It concerned a ship attempting to make the harbor at Cleveland during a storm on Lake Erie:
'Are you sure...
'By and by'
The phrase 'by and by', meaning 'in a little while' or 'at some time in the future' has been common in American English parlance since the 19th century. In spite of its simplicity, it is a haunting phrase, much more powerful than any alternatives such as the two above.
'By and by' is the title given to an African American spiritual of unknown origin. It was printed in Folk Song of the American Negro (Nashville, Tennessee: Fisk University, 1907), an account written and edited by...
MILES, C. (Charles) Austin. b. Lakehurst, New Jersey, 7 January 1868; d. Pitman, New Jersey, 10 March 1946. Educated at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and the University of Pennsylvania, Miles ended his pharmaceutical career in 1892 and turned to writing gospel music. His first song 'List, 'tis Jesus' voice' was accepted by the Hall-Mack Publishing Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which led to his appointment as editor and manager, a post he continued after that company's merger in...
Camp Meeting Hymns and Songs, USA
Since the publication of George Pullen Jackson*'s groundbreaking and provocative White Spirituals from the Southern Uplands (Chapel Hill, 1933), a considerable body of hymnological and musicological literature has accumulated on the folk hymnody of early America. In much of that secondary literature it is presupposed that a key component of this hymnic corpus is the camp-meeting 'chorus'. This sub-genre is typically constructed from wandering rhyme pairs or the...
OWENS, Carol. b. El Reno, Oklahoma, 30 October 1931. She was educated at San Jose State College in California. Her husband Jimmy* (they married in 1954) was a jazz band arranger who directed music in several churches in southern California. Beginning in the 'Jesus Movement' (see Christian popular music, USA*), the Owens were active in writing contemporary Christian musicals, performing and recording in various places in California, and doing musical missions for the Church of the Way in Los...
Cast thy bread upon the waters (Anon).
This is a hymn with the same first line, and in the same metre, as 'Cast thy bread upon the waters'* by Phebe Ann Hanaford*. It is based, like hers, on Ecclesiastes 11: 1, but it is so different from her hymn that it requires a separate entry. It is found in many revival hymnals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Gospel Hymns 5 and 6 Combined (1892) and in editions of Sacred Songs and Solos, where (in both books) the tune is attributed to...
Change my heart, O God. Eddie Espinosa* (1953– ).
Written in 1982, this is is Eddie Espinosa's best-known song. Espinosa tells the song's story:
The year was 1982. I had been a Christian since 1969, but I saw a lot of things in my life that needed to be discarded. I had slowly become very complacent. I acknowledged my complacency, and I prayed to the Lord, 'The only way that I can follow you is for you to change my appetite, the things that draw me away. You must change my heart! . ....
Christian charismatic communities and churches are extremely diverse in their theology and ecclesiology. This analysis will be mainly focused on material emanating from John Wimber*'s Vineyard Churches, the 'Toronto Blessing' movement, and the like. They have been chosen because of their pre-eminent status in contemporary Charismatic Renewal: their songs have affected styles and concepts in worship that have touched virtually every denomination in every corner of the globe. Wimber, indeed,...
GABRIEL, Charles Hutchinson. b. Wilton, Iowa, 18 August 1856; d. Hollywood, California, 14 September 1932. Following in his father's footsteps, Charles Gabriel became a singing school teacher at the age of 16, and after 1887 served as music director in the Grace Methodist Church in San Francisco. He settled in Chicago, the center for evangelical and revivalist publishing, in 1892, where he devoted the rest of his life to writing, composing, editing, and publishing. A list of his works includes...
ALEXANDER, Charles McCallon. b. Meadow, Tennessee, 24 October 1867; d. Birmingham, England, 13 October 1920. He was the son of John D. Alexander, a well-known musical leader, and Martha McCallon. A singing evangelist in the style of Ira D. Sankey*, young Alexander was influenced by his family's singing Gospel hymns around the fireside and by his mother's reading Dwight L. Moody*'s sermons to the family each night. Alexander attended Maryville Preparatory School and College, Maryville, Tennessee...
FRY, Charles William. b. Alderbury, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, 30 May 1838; d. Polmont, near Falkirk, Scotland, 24 August 1882. He was the son of a bricklayer. He was registered at birth as 'William Charles', but married as 'Charles William'. At the age of 17 he was converted at a Sunday evening prayer meeting at the Wesleyan chapel in Alderbury. He became a Wesleyan local preacher, but he was also a considerable musician, playing various instruments, including the cornet, which he played in a...
BOWATER, Christopher Alan (Chris). b. 1947. Bowater is a British songwriter and pastor. Between 1978 and 2006 he had published some 51 songs through Sovereign Lifestyle Music, Kingsway and Thankyou Music. Many of these have featured in various editions of series such as Mission Praise* and Songs of Fellowship*, as well as in denominational hymnals. Among his most popular and enduring songs are 'Faithful God' (1985) and 'Jesus shall take the highest honour' (1998). He has also published new...
MARTIN, Civilla Durfee (née Holden). b. Jordan, Nova Scotia, 21 August 1866; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 9 March 1948. Civilla Durfee was a village schoolteacher with some musical training. She wrote some gospel songs with her husband, Walter Stillman Martin (1862-1935), formerly a Baptist minister but later an itinerant evangelist, teacher, and pastor for the Disciples of Christ, based in Atlanta. She is best known for two very comforting gospel songs: 'Be not dismayed whate'er betide'* ('God will...
Come into my heart, blessed Jesus ('Into my heart'). Harry D. Clarke* (1889–1957).
This hymn began as a short chorus, composed in 1924; Clarke expanded the chorus into a gospel hymn with four stanzas in 1927. The earliest publication is unclear, but the refrain without the stanzas appears in Homer A. Rodeheaver*'s Praise and Worship Hymns (Chicago, 1927), with the subtitle 'My Prayer', an inscription occasionally used in later publications. The entire hymn was included in several...
Come Sunday. Duke (Edward Kennedy) Ellington (1899-1974).
The music of this jazz spiritual is adapted from the similarly titled section of Ellington's instrumental suite, Black, Brown and Beige, premiered at Carnegie Hall, New York City, (January 23, 1943). Ellington introduced the work at the premier as 'a tone parallel to the history of the negro in America.'
The lyrics resulted from a two-year collaboration of Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) and Ellington, as described by Irving Townsend in his...
WHITTLE, Daniel Webster. b. Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, 22 November 1840; d. Northfield, Massachusetts, 4 March 1901. Whittle was given the name of the great lexicographer, Daniel Webster, which suggests a respect for learning on the part of his parents, who moved to Chicago in his teenage years. He worked as a Wells Fargo Bank cashier in Chicago before serving in the Civil War. In 1861 he joined the 72nd Illinois infantry regiment: he took part in Sherman's march through Georgia from...
ZSCHECH, Darlene Joyce. b. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 8 September 1965. She was given an early training in music and dance as a child at Brisbane. By the age of ten she was performing on and hosting segments of a children's weekly television programme, and went on to record commercials for a number of international companies and form backing choirs for touring singers. During her teenage years she led various gospel bands in Brisbane, then with her husband Mark joined a youth band which...
AKERS, Doris Mae. b. Brookfield, Missouri, 21 May 1922; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 26 July 1995. Doris Akers had an active career as singer, choir director, songwriter, and recording artist, though she had no formal training in music. She wrote her first song at age ten, and afterwards composed hundreds of gospel songs and hymns (some sources indicate 500[1]) including 'Lead me, guide me'* and 'There's a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place'* which have influenced developments in Black Urban...
RAMBO, Dottie (Luttrell, Joyce Reba). b. Madisonville, Kentucky, 2 March 1934; d. Mount Vernon, Missouri, 11 May 2008. Raised during the Great Depression in the poverty-stricken coalfields of western Kentucky, Dottie expressed an early affinity for country music, taught herself to play guitar by listening to country music radio performances broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry, and began writing songs at the age of eight. Four years later she had a born-again Christian experience and made a...
Down to the valley [river] to pray. African American spiritual*.
The earliest printed version of this song, entitled 'The Good Old Way', appears in the first collection of folk song published in the United States, Slave Songs of the United States* (New York, 1867). Ascribed in the index (No. 104) to 'Mr. G[eorge] H. Allan', Nashville, it is included in section 'III. Inland Slave States: Including Tennessee, Arkansas, and the Mississippi River'. It is likely that Allan transmitted the song...
McNEIL (sometimes McNeill), Duncan. b. Glasgow, 15 February 1877; d. Glasgow, 28 January 1933. McNeil was a travelling Scottish evangelist, based in Glasgow. He continued to live there, apart from a visit to the USA in 1927-30, where he was associated with Kimball Avenue United Evangelical Church, Chicago (1928-30).
McNeil published Duncan McNeil's Hymn Book (London and Glasgow: Pickering and Inglis, n.d., but dated 1923 in British Library Catalogue). It is said to include 'Song Testimonies'...
MOODY, Dwight Lyman. b. Northfield, Massachusetts, 5 February 1837; d. Northfield, 22 December 1899. Moody, the pre-eminent evangelist of the late 19th century, grew up in rural Massachusetts but migrated to Boston and then Chicago as a young man. In Chicago he served as the first salaried president of the YMCA and increasingly established himself as a lay religious leader with no specific denominational ties. In 1873 he set out for Britain to launch a revival campaign, a highly successful...
ESPINOSA, Eddie. b. Los Angeles, California, 10 September 1953.
Eddie Espinosa is an educator, counselor, administrator, worship leader, composer, and producer. His family moved to Phoenix when he was in first grade. Though raised a Catholic and served as an altar boy, he made a profession of faith on August 24, 1969. Soon afterward, he attended a Dave Wilkerson Youth Rally and experienced Andraé Crouch* 'taking people into the presence of God'. At that point, he understood his calling...
EXCELL, Edwin Othello. b. Uniontown, Stark County, Ohio, 13 December 1851; d. Chicago, Illinois, 10 June 1921. Publisher, singer, and gospel song composer best known for his Sunday-school songs, including the standard arrangement of the shape-note melody, AMAZING GRACE, and his tune, BLESSINGS (see following), Excell was born to Rev. Joshua James Excell (1825-1911), a singer and minister in the German Reformed Church, and Emily (née Hess, d. 1888). Before his musical career became successful,...
HOFFMAN, Elisha Albright. b. Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, 7 May 1839; d. Chicago, Illinois, 25 November 1929. Hoffman was an Evangelical Association minister's son (his middle name was given in honour of the founder of the Association, Jacob Albright). After fighting on the Union side in the Civil War, he attended Union Bible Seminary in New Berlin, Pennsylvania, and was ordained in 1868 by the Evangelical Association. He worked with the Association's publishing arm in Cleveland, Ohio (1868-79)....
HALL, Elvina Mable (née Reynolds); JJ prints her second name thus; HymnQuest prints it as 'Mabel'. b. Alexandria, Virginia, 4 June 1820; d. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 18 July 1889. She was a member of the Monument Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Baltimore. She married Richard Hall; after his death she married the Revd Thomas Myers, of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Church. She is remembered for one hymn, 'I hear the Savior say'*. This is frequently known and referred to as 'Jesus...
BARTLETT, Eugene Monroe Sr. b. Waynesville, Missouri, 24 December 1885; d. Siloam Springs, Arkansas, 25 January 1941. Bartlett received his education at the Hall-Moody Institute in Martin, Tennessee, and at the William Jewell Academy, Independence, Missouri (1913-14). He served as president of the Hartford Music Company, in Hartford, Arkansas (1918-35), publishing songbooks and editing the company's music magazine, Herald of Song. He was associated later with the Stamps-Baxter Publications* in...
Free at last. African American spiritual*.
The concept of freedom is integral the theology of the spirituals according to liberation theologian James H. Cone (1936-2018):
The divine liberation of the oppressed from slavery is the central theological concept in the black spirituals. These songs show that black slaves did not believe that human servitude was reconcilable with their African past and their knowledge of the Christian gospel. They did not believe that God created Africans to be...
SHEA, George Beverly. b. Winchester, Ontario, 1 February 1909; d. Montreat, North Carolina, 16 April 2013. Shea was a celebrated vocalist, hymn writer, and composer. His long tenure with the Billy Graham Crusades, five decades of concerts, appearances on radio and television, and 70 recordings, brought him many accolades, including 'America's beloved gospel singer', and 'the first international singing star of the gospel world'. Shea was the fourth of eight children born of the union of Adam...
STEBBINS, George Coles. b. East Carlton, New York, 26 February 1846; d. Catskill, New York, 6 October 1945. Stebbins was a prominent and abiding northern Baptist composer, compiler, soloist, and song leader of 19th- and early 20th-century urban revivals in the UK and the USA. Following his education in an academy in Albany, and early experiences in singing schools (see USA hymnody, music*), he studied music in Buffalo, New York City, and Rochester, where he sang tenor in a church solo quartet....
Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning. Traditional, author unknown.
The Companion to ICH5 (2005) suggests that the 'oil in my lamp' song 'has all the feeling of an American traditional spiritual' (Darling and Davison, 2005, p. 751). It may indeed be a song that has its origins in the culture of the African American spiritual*. Hymnary.org reports a song by the influential hymn writer and tune composer Thoro Harris* beginning 'While the dread hour of darkness is settling o'er the earth' with...
'Give Me thy heart,' says the Father above. Eliza E. Hewitt* (1851-1920).
Written in 1898, and first published in Pentecostal Praises (Philadelphia, Hall-Mack Company, 1900), in three stanzas with a refrain. The refrain was:
'Give Me thy heart, give Me thy heart' - Hear the soft whisper, wherever thou art; From this dark world He would draw thee apart, Speaking so tenderly, - 'Give Me thy heart.'
The stanzas were:
'Give me thy heart,' says the Father above - No gift so precious to Him as...
Go down, Moses ('Let my people go'). African American spiritual*, 19th century
This song of liberty is of unknown date, but certainly existed before December 1861, when it was published in sheet music form as 'The Song of the Contrabands', 'O Let my people Go', with words and music written down by a chaplain to the escaped slaves, the Revd L.C. Lockwood, and arranged by Thomas Baker. The 'Contrabands' were given that name because they were 'contraband of war'. They were 'the fugitive slaves who...
Go tell it on the mountain. African American spiritual*, verses by John Wesley Work (II)* (1872?-1925).
The several versions of this spiritual are based on settings in two collections. The first appeared with the caption 'Christmas Plantation Song' in Religious Folk Songs of The Negro, as Sung on The Plantations, new edition (Hampton, Virginia, 1909):
When I was a seekerI sought both night and day.I ask de Lord to help me,An' He show me de way.
He made me a watchmanUpon the city wall,An' if I...
God be with you. Thomas A. Dorsey* (1899-1993), Artelia W. Hutchins, and Jeremiah Eames Rankin* (1828-1904).
This hymn of benediction by gospel legend Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993), often labeled as 'The Father of Gospel Music' in the African American context, is second its popularity following 'Precious Lord, take my hand'* (1932) in the composer's gospel compositions (Kemp, n.p.).
The text of this hymn is similar to 'God be with you till we meet again'* (1880) by American congregational...
God loved the world of sinners lost. Martha Matilda Stockton*.
According to Taylor (1989, p. 50), this was written ca. 1871, and published in The Voice of Praise (Richmond, Virginia, 1872), edited by Ebenezer T. Baird and Karl Reden, and then in Winnowed Hymns: a collection of sacred songs, especially adapted for revivals, prayer and camp meetings (New York and Chicago, 1873).
It entered mainstream gospel hymnody in Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (Cincinnati, New York and Chicago, 1875), edited...
God's spirit is in my heart ('Go, tell everyone'). Alan Dale* (1902-1979 and Hubert Richards* (1921-2010).
This modern hymn with refrain has become very popular in Britain since it was published in Ten Gospel Songs (1969). That book was a collaboration between Dale and Richards (1921-2010). Richards composed the tune for guitar to fit Dale's stanza 1 and refrain ('He sent me to bring the good news to the poor'). These had been published in Dale's New World: The Heart of the New Testament in...
Gospel Hymns Nos. 1 to 6 Complete (1894) (New York: Biglow & Main Company; and Cincinnati: John Church & Company): Gospel Hymns and Sacred Solos by P. P. Bliss and Ira D. Sankey as used by them in Gospel Meetings [No. 1] (1875), No. 2 (1876), No. 3 (1878), No. 4 (1883), No. 5 (1887), No. 6 (1891), Gospel Hymns Nos. 1 to 6 Complete (1894).
Beginning with the first Great Awakening ca.1730-60 (see Great Awakenings, USA*), the colonies, and subsequently the USA, have periodically...
Gospel Music Association (GMA). This is an industry organization created in 1964 and based in Nashville, Tennessee. It promotes the commercial interests and mass-media products of mostly English-speaking, North American, Protestant musicians and those making up the industry that supports them. That industry is centered around Nashville and includes persons employed by electronic mass-media companies such as record companies and radio and television stations; producers; concert promoters;...
The gospel song or gospel hymn is a genre of Christian worship-song that developed in revivals held in Great Britain and the USA, 1865-74. Its primary antecedents were camp meeting songs which joined personal witness and freedom of expression. and the widely popular Sunday school song. Start-up music publishers (see Publishing and publishers, USA*), exploited the product of pittance-paid, albeit talented songwriters and composers, and banded with organizers, preachers and song leaders of white...
TULLAR, Grant Colfax. b. Bolton, Connecticut, 5 August 1869; d. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 20 May 1950. He was a gospel singer, evangelist, publisher, writer of hymn texts, and composer of hymn tunes.
A few months before Tullar's birth, Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) and Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885) were inaugurated President and Vice-President of the United States. Tullar was named in their honor. His father, Austin Milleon Tullar (1830-1896) fought briefly in the Civil War, having enlisted 30...
Hark! the herald angels sing (Jesus the light of the world). Arranged by George D. Elderkin (1845–1928).
Gospel musical traditions in the United States have enlivened the 18th-century hymns for over 150 years. Those by Isaac Watts*, Charles Wesley*, and John Newton* were among those heard by those influenced by the Second Great Awakening (c. 1795–1835), during which rural whites and enslaved Africans reinvented and reinterpreted hymns from England for their own situation. The enlivening of...
PIERSON, Harriet H. (Hattie). b. Canaan, New York, 1865; d. Sagaponack (a village in the Town of Southampton), New York, 25 February 1921. Pierson, a writer of gospel hymn texts and plays for children, was a daughter of Albert Jackson Pierson (1827?-1884), a farmer, and Phebe T. Pierson (1825?- ), who were married 30 March 1853. Little is known about her childhood and that of her sister and lifelong companion Miss Mary E. Pierson (1855 - ?).
At least two of her school plays were...
CLARKE, Harry Dixon. b. Cardiff, Wales, 28 January 1889, d. Lexington, Kentucky, 14 October 1957. Harry Dixon Clarke was born in Cardiff (some sources indicate that he later changed his middle name to Dudley). Orphaned at a young age, he ran away from the orphanage, found his way to London, and went to sea for nearly a decade. With his brother's assistance, Clarke moved to Canada and then to the United States, where he experienced his conversion. After studying at Moody Bible...
Hillsong: Hillsong (Hillsong Music Australia); Hillsong (Church)
Hillsong Church is a contemporary pentecostal megachurch founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1983. At the time of writing, the congregation gathers to worship on six continents with an additional outreach through its digital platform Hillsong Church Online (HCO) as well as music streaming on various online platforms. The Hillsong brand is one of the most recognisable among Christians globally. Hillsong is well known internationally...
How can I say thanks (My tribute). Andraé Crouch* (1942–2015).
'My tribute', composed in 1971, is one of the signature songs by Andraé Crouch. The final chapter of Crouch's autobiography, entitled 'To God be the glory', is from the song's refrain, which is an allusion to the hymn 'To God be the glory, great things He hath done'* by Fanny Crosby*. In the language of his African American Pentecostal heritage in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) tradition, the composer offers his own Soli Deo...
How lovely on the mountains. Leonard E. Smith, Jr.* (1942- ).
The full first line is 'How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him'. Based on Isaiah 52: 7-10, this worship song was written at Riverton, New Jersey in 1973. With its refrain ('Our God reigns') it was first sung in the New Covenant Community Church, where Smith was a worship leader. Copyrighted in 1974, three further stanzas were added in 1978.
The song became widely known through its use by evangelists. Its effect comes from...
I am resolved no longer to linger. Palmer Hartsough* (1844-1932).
William J. Reynolds* describes the origins of this hymn. James H Fillmore (1849-1936), of Fillmore Publishers, Cincinnati, wrote the words and music in 1896 for a Christian Endeavour conference in San Francisco. It was sung by fourteen trainloads of attenders who travelled from Ohio to California (Reynolds, 1990, pp.108-109). Fillmore then asked Hartsough to write a text that would allow the hymn to be used more generally. It...
I am thinking today of that beautiful land. Eliza E. Hewitt* (1851-1920).
This hymn is usually dated 1897, following its publication in Songs of Love and Praise, No. 4 (Philadelphia, 1897). It is frequently known as 'Will there be any stars', from the first line of the refrain:
Will there be any stars, any stars in my crown, When at evening the sun goeth down? When I wake with the blest, In the mansions of rest, Will there be any stars in my crown?
It had three stanzas:
I am thinking today...
I am weak but Thou art strong. Anonymous.
This traditional hymn is frequently known as 'Just a closer walk with Thee' from the first line of the refrain. Its precise origins are unknown. It seems to have gained popularity, both in print and in recordings, during the 1940s. During this era and in the musical cultures that generated this song, it was common to for a musician to take a commonly known song, make a musical arrangement including adding a stanza or refrain, and then claim ownership....
I have read of a beautiful city. Jonathan Burtch Atchinson* (1840-1882).
This is dated in JJ (p. 89) ca. 1874 or 1875, and published in an 'early edition' of Gospel Hymns (according to Hymnary.org it was Gospel Hymns No. 3 (New York and Cincinnati, 1878):
I have read of a beautiful city, Far away in the kingdom of God; I have read how its walls are of jasper, How its streets are all golden and broad; In the midst of the street is life's river, Clear as crystal and pure to behold; But not half...
I/weshall not be moved; African American spiritual*/Folk Song.
Black Spiritual
Bernice Johnson Reagon reminds us that,'The African American spiritual and its evolution within American society—like a great river shooting off hundreds of tributaries to be joined together somewhere further down the way—give us the richest opportunity to view the tradition in a way that unleashes the powerful human story it holds' (Reagon, 1992, p. 13). 'I shall not be moved' is an example of this premise:
I...
If when you give the best of your service (He Understands; He'll Say, ''Well Done''). Lucie Eddie Campbell-Williams* (1885-1963).
This was composed in 1933 for the annual gathering of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., and quickly became one of the all-time Convention favorites. African American scholar Horace Clarence Boyer* notes:
From 1930 to 1962, [Campbell] introduced a new song each year at the National Baptist Convention. Her songs became gospel standards, sung by all races...
In the shadow of His wings. Jonathan Burtch Atchinson* (1840-1882).
First published in Salvation Echoes: For Sabbath School, Gospel, Prayer and Praise Meetings (Alliance, Ohio, 1882), based on Psalm 63: 7: 'because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.' It had three stanzas and a refrain:
In the shadow of His wings There is rest, sweet rest; There is rest from care and labor, There is rest for friend and neighbor; In the shadow of His wings There is...
SANKEY, Ira David. b. Edinburgh, near New Castle, Pennsylvania, 28 August 1840; d. Brooklyn, New York 14 August 1908. He was one of eleven children born of the marriage of devout Methodists David and Mary (née Leeper) Sankey. The family settled a few miles east in Western Reserve Harbour and attended the nearby Methodist Church in King's Chapel where Sankey at age 16 was 'converted'. Sankey learned to sing hymns in Sunday school and in the family hymn sings. 'By the time he was eight . . . he...
I've found a friend in Jesus, He's everything to me. Charles William Fry* (1837-1882).
A note found by Fry's widow after his death indicated that this hymn had been written in June 1881 at Lincoln at the house of a friend called Wilkinson. Before Fry's death, however, it had been sung at a holiness convention at the Wesleyan Chapel at City Road, London, on 20 December 1881. It was first published in The War Cry (29 December 1881), and then in Salvation Music Vol 2 (1883). In the USA it was...
CLEVELAND, James. b. Chicago, Illinois, 5 December 1931; d. Los Angeles, California, 9 February 1991. Singer, composer, pianist, choir director, recording artist, James Cleveland is regarded as the single most important figure in African-American gospel music in the 20th century. As a young boy, Cleveland sang in the choir of Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church, where the ministers of music were Thomas A. Dorsey* (who in 1930 had introduced the church to his 'gospel blues'), and Roberta Martin...
VAUGHAN, James David. b. Giles County, Tennessee, 14 December 1864; d. Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, 9 February 1941. Known as 'the father of southern gospel music', Vaughan grew up in Middle Tennessee and attended his first shape note singing school as a teenager (see Shape-note hymnody*). By the age of eighteen he was already teaching singing classes, and he formed a gospel quartet with his brothers. In 1890 he married and moved to Texas where he was influenced by Ephraim T. (E. T.) Hildebrand...
BLACK, James Milton. b. South Hill, New York, 19 August 1856; d. Williamsport, Pennsylvania, 21 December 1938. Black was an enthusiastic promoter of Gospel hymnody, compiling volume after volume, often with sub-titles such as 'for use in Sunday schools, prayer meetings, revivals, young people's meetings, and on special occasions'. His Songs of the Soul (1894) was very successful, selling, it is believed, 400,000 copies. He was extremely active at the turn of the century, publishing a series of...
Jesus is a rock in a weary land. African American spiritual*.
This song of African American origin is characterized by a memorable refrain that has remained constant for over a century; the stanzas, however, vary from publication to publication. The repetition of words in the refrain's first three lines indicates that its origins may lie in oral rather than written tradition. The two primary elements of the refrain text— 'rock in a weary land' and 'shelter in the time of storm'—echo several...
OWENS, Jimmy Lloyd. b. Clarksdale, Mississippi, 9 December 1930. After school at Jackson, Mississippi, he attended Millsaps College, and was a jazz band arranger; after a conversion he directed music in several churches in southern California. He married Carol Owens* in 1954. Beginning in the 'Jesus Movement', the Owens were active in writing contemporary Christian musicals, performing and recording in various places in California, and doing musical missions for the Church of the Way in Los...
GOWANS, John. b. Blantyre, Lanarkshire, 13 November 1934; d. South London, 8 December 2012. Gowans became a Salvation Army officer in 1955, after National Service in the Royal Army Educational Corps. At school he developed an interest in poetry and drama, and in 1966 was co-opted to write the lyrics for a Salvation Army youth musical, with the composer John Larsson. Alongside his appointments in Britain, France and USA, he went on to write ten musicals on Biblical and Salvation Army themes,...
WIMBER, John. b. Kirksville, Missouri, 25 February 1934; d. Orange County, California, 17 November 1997. One of the 20th century's leading charismatic pastors, Wimber is known primarily as a founder of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. While still in high school, he began a professional career in music, winning first place in an international Jazz festival in 1953. His ability as a pianist and vocalist led to performances with several Rock and Roll musical groups. Experiencing a conversion in...
ATCHINSON, Jonathan Burtch. b. Wilson, Niagara County, New York State, 17 February 1840; d. Midland City, Ohio, 15 July 1882. The son of Henry M. Atchinson (1807-1889) and Annah Burtch (1805-1884), he served in the Union army during the Civil War, was licensed to preach (1869), and became a ministerial member of in the Genesee Conference [Western New York] (1870). He transferred his membership to the Detroit [Michigan] Conference in 1873. According to the Detroit Conference Journal (1882, p....
VAN DE VENTER, Judson Wheeler. b. near Dundee, Michigan, 5 December 1855; d. Tampa, Florida, 17 July 1939. Educated at Hillsdale College, Michigan, he was a student of drawing and painting, with ambitions to be a great artist. He studied painting in Europe in 1885, before becoming a teacher of art. He supported himself financially by teaching at Sharon High School, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, becoming supervisor of art in the public schools of the city, and then in Bradford, Pennsylvania. He...
GREEN, Keith Gordon. b. Brooklyn, New York, 1953; d. July 1982. Born into a Jewish family, Green was brought up as a Christian Scientist. In his early years he was a featured composer and performer of rock-and-roll: in adolescence he played the ukulele in New York clubs, and became involved with the drug scene. He was searching for a better life when he met Melody*, also a staff song-writer at CBS Records, Hollywood, whom he married in 1972. Together they founded the 'Last Days Ministries' in...
MORRIS, Kenneth. b. Jamaica, New York, 28 August 1917; d. Chicago, Illinois, 1 February 1989. A gospel song composer and publisher, Morris was the son of Ettuila (née White) and John Morris. Though he attended the Manhattan Conservatory of Music where he studied classical music, his first interest was in jazz piano. He formed the Kenneth Morris Jazz Band in New York City. An invitation to perform at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago in 1934 changed the course of his life. He...
WOLFE, Lanny. b. Columbus, Ohio; 2 February 1942. A songwriter and music publisher, Wolfe has written over 700 songs. He is credited with influencing the movement of music in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches from traditional hymns and folk-style singing during the 1970s and 1980s to more recent gospel and popular styles. In addition to song writing and performing, he taught at Gateway College of Evangelism, Florissant, Missouri (1968–1974), and Jackson College of Ministries in Jackson,...
DOUROUX, Margaret (née Pleasant). b. Los Angeles, California, 21 March 1941. One of six children born to Olga and Earl A. Pleasant, her father was a gospel singer who had toured with his friend, gospel superstar Mahalia Jackson; and an African American Baptist preacher who founded the Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, where he invited the greatest gospel singers to sing. Margaret was educated in the public schools in Los Angeles, California State University (BA, 1964), and...
ALLISON, Margaret Wells. b. McCormick, South Caroline, 25 September 1921; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 30 July 2008. Allison is primarily recognized as the founder and leader of the Angelic Gospel Singers, a gospel ensemble she directed for over fifty years. Known as 'Babe', 'she was the eldest living female gospel artist still traveling and performing' at the time of her death at 86 years of age (Manovich, 2008, n.p.).
From South Carolina she moved to Philadelphia when she was four. It was...
SMITH, Martin. b. Stoke On Trent, Staffordshire, England, 6 July 1970. He was raised in the north-east London suburb of Woodford Bridge where he grew up attending a small Brethren church. As a teenager, Smith moved to South London, where he first started playing guitar for a Brethren youth group directed by his father. In his autobiography, Smith specifically mentioned the transition from the Hymns of Faith hymnal to the praise choruses in Kingsway's Songs of Fellowship as an important turning...
Melodies of Praise (1957, 1985).
This the title of the hymnal of the churches known as Assembly of God churches. The denomination dates from 1914, when a group of evangelical and Pentecostal ministers meeting at Hot Springs, Arkansas, formed the 'Assemblies of God (USA)'. It is now part of a world-wide organisation, the World Assemblies of God Fellowship. Its headquarters are in Springfield, Missouri, although each church has its independent governance. Its non-negotiable 'Statement of...
My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine. William Ralph Featherston* (1846-1873).
This Gospel hymn is normally attributed to Featherston (but see below). After that the information is uncertain. It was said by Ira D. Sankey* (1906, pp. 165-6) to have been published without an author's name in The London Hymn Book of 1862. The usually reliable James Mearns* gives 1864 as the date, and the author as anonymous (JJ, p. 1676). Sankey's title probably refers to The London Hymn Book, containing...
Preachers and teachers would make their appeal ('Something Within'). Lucie Eddie Campbell-Williams* (1885-1963).
Composed in 1919, this was one of the earliest and most enduring hymns composed by Lucie Eddie Campbell. Charles Walker provides information on the song's genesis:
The song was dedicated to a blind gospel singer named Connie Rosemund, who inspired it. Mr. Rosemund customarily played his guitar on Beale Street [a street in Memphis, Tennessee], and people put coins in his little...
BENSON, Robert (Bob) Green, Jr. b. Nashville, Tennessee, 26 August 1930; d. Nashville, 22 March 1986. Benson was the grandson of John T. Benson, Sr.*, founder of the John T. Benson Publishing Company, Nashville. Benson attended Trevecca Nazarene College (now University), Nashville (AB, 1951), and Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri (BD, 1955). He was ordained in the ministry of the Church of the Nazarene, pastored a local church in Orlando, Florida, and was interim chaplain at...
SMITH, Rodney ('Gipsy' Smith). b. Epping Forest, near London, 31 March 1860; d. at sea 4 August 1947). He was born in a Romany tent, the fourth of six children of Cornelius Smith (1831-1922) and Mary Welch (ca. 1831-1865). His family made a living selling baskets, clothes pegs, tinware, and through horse-dealing; neither of his parents could read. He grew up 'as wild as the birds, frolicsome as the lambs, and as difficult to catch as the rabbits' (Smith, 1901, Chapter 1). His mother died of...
THOMAS, Ruth ('Ruthie'). b. in England of African Caribbean parents, 7 July 1956. She grew up in Wales. She was a student at King Alfred's University College, Winchester, where she received a P.D. James Bursary and was awarded an MA in the School of English in Writing for Children. She has subsequently published two novels for children, Ruby Tucker (2008) and Different (2010). She is a gospel singer, performer, poet, and hymn writer whose work has appeared in a number of contemporary...
Salvation! O the joyful sound. Isaac Watts* (1674-1748) and Walter Shirley* (1725-1786).
This began as 'LXXXVIII. Salvation' in Book II, 'Compos'd on Divine Subjects', of Isaac Watts's Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707). It had three stanzas:
Salvation! O the joyful Sound! 'Tis Music to our Ears; A Sovereign Balm for every Wound, A Cordial for our Fears.
Bury'd in Sorrow and in Sin, At Hell's dark Door we lay, But we arise by Grace Divine To see a heavenly Day.
Salvation! let the Eccho...
Sound of Living Waters
Sound of Living Waters was published in 1974 in London by Hodder & Stoughton and in the USA by Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1974), edited by Betty Pulkingham* and Jeanne Harper. It had a bright cover, and was ring-bound, making it one of the earliest books to break free from the traditional style and format. Sub-titled Songs of Renewal, it contained 133 items, arranged in sections, as follows:
Hallelujah!... Songs of praise and thanksgiving
Kneel and Adore…...
General
Southern Gospel is one of the multiple vernacular Christian music traditions that developed within American (and to some extent British) Protestant cultures during the 19th and 20th centuries, and part of the gospel music phenomenon that has flourished in Anglophone Christendom since the 1870s. It is also part of the Christian, but especially Protestant, practice of recreational musicking with vernacular songs and hymns.
'Southern Gospel' refers to a music tradition that dates arguably...
The Virgin Mary had a baby boy. West Indian carol.
This carol, sometimes called a spiritual, reflects one of the varied experiences and cultures encountered by enslaved Africans when they came to the Americas. Since it does not find its origins in the continental United States, 'The Virgin Mary' does not appear in the historical collections of African American spirituals* such as the monumental Slave Songs of the United States* (New York: 1867), the first extensive collection of African...
There's a Stranger at the door. Jonathan Burtch Atchinson* (1840-1882).
First published, after Atchinson's death, in The Gospel Choir (New York, 1885), edited by Ira D. Sankey*. It had four stanzas:
There's a Stranger at the door, Let Him in; He has been there oft before, Let Him in; Let Him in, ere He is gone, Let Him in, the Holy One, Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, Let Him in.
Open now to Him your heart, Let Him in; If you wait He will depart, Let Him in; Let Him in, He is your Friend;...
This is the glorious gospel word. Thomas Bowman Stephenson* (1839-1912).
This hymn was 'called forth by a religious Convention at Brighton' (JJ, p.1093). This must have been before 1875, when it was published in Calvary Songs: a collection of new and choice hymns for Sunday schools and families, edited by Charles S. Robinson* and Theodore E. Perkins (Philadelphia, 1875) to a tune by George F. Weeks. It may well have been published earlier in Britain, and it must have crossed the Atlantic very...