Mr. Thomas Andrew Dorseys telephone number was given to the writer of this newly released book by the name Thomas A. Dorsey, Father of Black Gospel Music an Interview by a directory assistance operator in Chicago, Illinois. The writer, at the time (1975), took a chance and called, not expecting the first publisher of black gospel music to answer the phone. A very hoarse voice said Hello, and the writer recognized it immediately as being the voice he had heard on a recording about gospel music that Mr. Dorsey had done. After being asked if he would consent to being interviewed, Mr. Dorsey unenthusiastically said yes. He was unenthusiastic, the writer later discovered, because fortune hunters and status seekers had been plaguing him for interviews. Honored that Mr. Dorsey had said yes, the writer took a train from Kansas City, Missouri, to Chicago to interview this man who had written hundreds of songs.
Mr. Thomas Andrew Dorsey's telephone number was given to the writer of this newly released book by the name, Thomas A. Dorsey, Father of Black Gospel Music An Interview, by a directory assistance operator in Chicago, Illinois. The writer, at the time, (1975) took a chance and called, not expecting the first publisher of Black Gospel Music, to answer the phone. A very hoarse voice said "Hello," and the writer recognized it immediately as being the voice he had heard on a recording about Gospel Music that Mr. Dorsey had done. After being asked if he would consent to being interviewed Mr. Dorsey unenthusiastically said yes. He was unenthusiastic the writer later discovered, because fortune hunters and status seekers had been plaguing him for interviews. Honored that Mr. Dorsey had said yes, the writer took a train from Kansas City, Missouri to Chicago, to interview this man who had written hundreds of songs.
Anointed to Sing the Gospel is the biography of the "Father of Gospel Music," Dr. Thomas A. Dorsey from Villa Rica, GA to Chicago, IL. It encompasses the spiritual dilemma that caused him to cross-over completely to the gospel song from blues and jazz. The impact of Thomas A. Dorsey as a modern-day Levite and his impact on music of the 20th and 21st century Levites is examined. Interviews with contemporaries and devotees of Thomas A. Dorsey are included.
In A City Called Heaven, Robert M. Marovich follows gospel music from early hymns and camp meetings through its growth into the sanctified soundtrack of the city's mainline black Protestant churches. Marovich mines print media, ephemera, and hours of interviews with artists, ministers, and historians--as well as relatives and friends of gospel pioneers--to recover forgotten singers, musicians, songwriters, and industry leaders. He also examines the entrepreneurial spirit that fueled gospel music's rise to popularity and granted social mobility to a number of its practitioners. As Marovich shows, the music expressed a yearning for freedom from earthly pains, racial prejudice, and life's hardships. Yet it also helped give voice to a people--and lift a nation. A City Called Heaven celebrates a sound too mighty and too joyous for even church walls to hold.
The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. “Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again “Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.
In times of doubt, fear, and loss, we turn to the songs and hymns that remind us that this world is not all there is--that what awaits us as followers of Jesus is a heavenly kingdom. Songs like "Face to Face," "Amazing Grace," "Heaven Came Down," "Victory in Jesus," and "I'll Fly Away." And behind every song about heaven is a story. So many were written amid circumstances of great personal pain on the part of the songwriter. And in sharing their story, we can find even more comfort in our own circumstances. Award-winning author Ace Collins offers this collection of 30 inspiring stories that provide hope for this world and insight into the next, painting a picture of eternal life filled with joy, peace, and happy reunions. This book is perfect for those who love the stories behind the great hymns of the faith as well as anyone who has experienced loss, and pastors, hospice workers, and counselors will find it the perfect pass-along for the grieving.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Featured as One of Summer’s most anticipated reads by the Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, ELLE, Buzzfeed, and Bitch Media. From the author of I Don’t Want to Die Poor and in the style of New York Times bestsellers You Can’t Touch My Hair, Bad Feminist, and I'm Judging You, a timely collection of alternately hysterical and soul‑searching essays about what it is like to grow up as a creative, sensitive black man in a world that constantly tries to deride and diminish your humanity. It hasn’t been easy being Michael Arceneaux. Equality for LGBTQ people has come a long way and all, but voices of persons of color within the community are still often silenced, and being Black in America is…well, have you watched the news? With the characteristic wit and candor that have made him one of today’s boldest writers on social issues, I Can’t Date Jesus is Michael Arceneaux’s impassioned, forthright, and refreshing look at minority life in today’s America. Leaving no bigoted or ignorant stone unturned, he describes his journey in learning to embrace his identity when the world told him to do the opposite. He eloquently writes about coming out to his mother; growing up in Houston, Texas; being approached for the priesthood; his obstacles in embracing intimacy that occasionally led to unfortunate fights with fire ants and maybe fleas; and the persistent challenges of young people who feel marginalized and denied the chance to pursue their dreams. Perfect for fans of David Sedaris, Samantha Irby, and Phoebe Robinson, I Can’t Date Jesus tells us—without apologies—what it’s like to be outspoken and brave in a divisive world.
While there have been a number of studies that have explored African American “movement culture” and African American “movement politics,” rarely has the mixture of black music and black politics or, rather, black music an as expression of black movement politics, been explored across several genres of African American “movement music,” and certainly not with a central focus on the major soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement: gospel, freedom songs, rhythm & blues, and rock & roll. Here the mixture of music and politics emerging out of the Civil Rights Movement is critically examined as an incredibly important site and source of spiritual rejuvenation, social organization, political education, and cultural transformation, not simply for the non-violent civil rights soldiers of the 1950s and 1960s, but for organic intellectual-artist-activists deeply committed to continuing the core ideals and ethos of the Civil Rights Movement in the twenty-first century. Civil Rights Music: The Soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement is primarily preoccupied with that liminal, in-between, and often inexplicable place where black popular music and black popular movements meet and merge. Black popular movements are more than merely social and political affairs. Beyond social organization and political activism, black popular movements provide much-needed spaces for cultural development and artistic experimentation, including the mixing of musical and other aesthetic traditions. “Movement music” experimentation has historically led to musical innovation, and musical innovation in turn has led to new music that has myriad meanings and messages—some social, some political, some cultural, some spiritual and, indeed, some sexual. Just as black popular movements have a multiplicity of meanings, this book argues that the music that emerges out of black popular movements has a multiplicity of meanings as well.
Readings in African American Church Music and Worship features important articles and essays on music and worship written by some of the most influential voices of the past century, including W. E. B. DuBois, Wendell P. Whalum, V. Michael McKay, Wyatt Tee Walker, J. Wendell Mapson Jr., and others.
