More than Precious Memories is the first book of its kind--a collection of essays offering scholarly analysis and interpretation of Southern Gospel Music. Believing Southern Gospel Music to be a significant cultural and religious phenomenon worthy of the best efforts of scholarship, Grayes and Fillingim have assembled a diverse group of scholars who apply a variety of methods and theories to the task of understanding Southern Gospel Music and its cultural context. These scholars and approaches include the following. - Scott Tucker, looks at the theme of "heaven" in six of the Gaither Homecoming songbooks - David Fillingim looks at how Southern Gospel Music answers the question of theodicy from the perspective of the rural white, working class - Robert M. McManus explores selected song lyrics to show how Southern - Gospel Music helps construct the identity of the community compared to Contemporary Christian Music - Darlene R. Graves identifies key sustaining personality strengths of women that tend to preserve consistency between their public performance and personal spiritual walk - Elizabeth F. Desnoyers Colas and Stephanie Howard (Asabi) explore Southern Gospel and Black Gospel music through the influence of Thomas A. Dorsey - Michael Graves examines how the culture of Southern Gospel Music deals with its inevitable prodigal sons - Raymond D.S. Anderson analyzes the Gaither Homecoming videos as examples of the postmodern turn in American popular Christian culture - John D. Keeler presents the first audience study of Southern Gospel Music employing a "Uses and Gratifications" research framework - Paul A. Creasman examines the ways Southern Gospel Musicas a culture memorializes its dead by use of the Internet - Naaman Wood reviews significant scholarly approaches to the study of popular music.
“A work of extraordinary imagination and sympathy, a journey from slavery to the mountaintop, perfectly realized.” —Ken Burns, American filmmaker Born on Emancipation Day, 1863, to a sharecropping family of black and Indian blood, Elijah Yancy never lived as a slave—but his self–image as a free person is at war with his surroundings: Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the Reconstructed South. Exiled for his own survival as a teenager, Elijah walks west to the Nebraska plains—and, like other rootless young African–American men of that era, joins up with the US cavalry. The trajectory of Elijah’s army career parallels the nation’s imperial adventures in the late 19th century: subduing Native Americans in the West, quelling rebellion in the Philippines. Haunted by the terrors endured by black Americans and by his part in persecuting other people of color, Elijah is sustained only by visions, memories, prayers, and his questing spirit—which ultimately finds a home when his troop is posted to the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903. Here, living with little beyond mountain light, running water, campfires, and stars, he becomes a man who owns himself completely, while knowing he’s left pieces of himself scattered along his life’s path like pebbles on a creek bed. “Seen through the fresh eyes of buffalo soldier Elijah Yancy, Yosemite is Gloryland, his true home. Shelton Johnson has written a beautiful novel about Elijah’s journey.” —Maxine Hong Kingston, author of China Men and The Woman Warrior
Historically the state of Ohio has maintained an active role in the promotion of southern gospel music. Many gospel artists, including some of the Nation’s finest, were either born, or lived a portion of their life, in Ohio. Development of these ministries and the events that have taken place along the way has become a valuable part of Ohio’s history. Over the past two years, desiring to preserve a portion of this history, I have completed extensive research interviewing gospel artists throughout the state. I then compiled this information into a unique collection of history to be shared with everyone. To help the reader more fully appreciate “life on the road” the stories of these gospel artists are presented within the context of eight road tours covering the entire state of Ohio. Travelling along on each tour we will experience a variety of emotions from laughter to frustration. At each stop we will learn some fascinating facts about the town and while in town we’ll stop by and visit with a few of those southern gospel artists and/or groups who claim the town as part of their heritage. Each tour will end with a short walk down memory lane as we view photos of those gospel artists whom we have just visited. So come on! Open the book, climb on board and prepare yourself for eight exciting tours across the great state of Ohio where we’ll meet some truly inspiring people. Hope you enjoy the book!
(Fake Book). This excellent resource for Gospel titles features 449 songs, including: Amazing Grace * At the Cross * Because He Lives * Behold the Lamb * Blessed Assurance * Church in the Wildwood * The Day He Wore My Crown * Give Me That Old Time Religion * He Looked Beyond My Fault * He Touched Me * Heavenly Sunlight * His Eye Is on the Sparrow * Holy Ground * How Great Thou Art * I Bowed on My Knees and Cried Holy * I Saw the Light * I'd Rather Have Jesus * In the Garden * Joshua (Fit the Battle of Jericho) * Just a Little Talk with Jesus * Lord, I'm Coming Home * Midnight Cry * Morning Has Broken * My Tribute * Near the Cross * The Old Rugged Cross * Precious Memories * Rock of Ages * Shall We Gather at the River? * There Is Power in the Blood * We Shall Wear a Crown * What a Friend We Have in Jesus * and hundreds more!
Howling Wolf, a Comanche warrior, watched his life's blood being pumped from his leg to the ground below. He applied pressure to the severed artery, but knew he would die within minutes. A terrible drought forces Jeb Hawkins and his family, as well as Shawnee Chief Grey Cloud and his tribe, from their land, and they guide you on a journey from Tennessee to the Colorado Territory. The trip is a long and dangerous journey where anything can happenand sometimes does.
Volatile politics of the Reagan era connect America's female terrorist group to a plot to set off the feared super volcano in Yellowstone Park. A young Native American girl running for governor of Montana and the pianist for a Southern gospel quartet discover and spoil the plot during a revival in the Montana Rockies. They also discover one another. But he is a potential FBI agent from Washington, DC, and she is a rodeo queen from Montana. The course of love does not run smoothly, but a love for Big Sky Country and a drink of creek water brings them together.
In the earliest days of the last century, a Florida family strives to build a legacy in the burgeoning new city of Miami . . . In South Florida, a region that offers some of life’s richest beauty as well as some of its harshest conditions, a city is rising. Eve and Max Harjo moved to Miami after the great freeze of 1894 wiped out their citrus grove. Eve is busy writing for the Miami Metropolis, Miami’s first newspaper, while Max salvages the ships that fall victim to Florida’s dangerous reefs and violent storms. Their nineteen-year-old daughter Eliza dives to bring up the salvaged treasures, uncaring that it is hardly woman’s work. And her stubborn determination to educate local Seminoles—male and female—draws the ire of the tribe’s chief. But Eliza’s greatest conflict will be choosing between two men: a brilliant inventor working on the prototype for a new motorboat, and a handsome lighthouse keeper from the northwest. When a massive storm unleashes its fury on South Florida, it reveals people’s truest characters and deepest secrets, changing lives as drastically as it changes the coastal landscape . . .
In turn-of-the-century Florida, a family comes of age, and a daughter finds her destiny entwined with a land as full of promise as it is danger. The steamy, sweltering banks of Florida’s Ocklawaha River don’t look much like Glory Land to young Eve Stewart, despite her father’s proclamation. But it’s here that Eve, her three siblings, and their parents will settle in July, 1875. Within a few years, Eve’s father, Hap, has made good on his assurances. They have a large, weathered clapboard house and a comfortable life, thanks to Hap’s job on a steamboat. Eve and her twin sister, Ivy, are blossoming into young women. Yet as Ivy grows more involved in medicine making under the tutelage of a neighboring black woman, her path leads away from the family. Eve, an aspiring writer, loves her home though she longs to see the wider world beyond its swamps and shores. But when she discovers a secret Ivy’s been keeping, Eve must decide between protecting the family name or saving her sister. With the help of a half-Creek Indian tracker, Max Harjo, Eve sets out to find Ivy, beginning a journey that will dare her to follow her ambitions and her passion wherever they lead.