"There can be little doubt that shouting is a survival of the African "possession" by the gods... it is a sign of special favor from the
spirit that it chooses to drive out the individual consciousness
temporarily and use the body for its express..."
-Zora Neal Hurston,
The Sanctified Church
"Of all the bodies of folk song that have survived in America to the
present century spirituals are probably the most extensive; they are
certainly, in on form or another, the best known. As 'negro
spirituals' they have entered church and concert hall, have
influenced composers from Dvorak to Virgil Thompson and have been
sung in schools and by choirs throughout the English-speaking world.
Yet, in spite of their widespread popularity through publication and
performance, their origins are obscure and the ways in which they
were first sung ar probably unknown. Even the term 'spirituals' was
not widely used by Blacks (though it was common in Sea Islands), the
word 'Anthem' being much more widespread and surviving to the 1950s
in rural areas."
-Oliver, Harrison, and Bolcom
Gospel, Blues, and Jazz
Anthem music, later called 'spirituals', and much later
'gospel' music, while having a direct and vital link to Africa is
distinctly American music. A music so much a part of the fabric of
the sum of American music that much of the popular idioms of today
can be traced, with little effort, to gospel music (for brevity,
herein I will use the term 'gospel' to refer to anthem and spiritual
forms of religious Afro-American music).
African Roots
Tribal African music of four hundred years ago differed from
European and white American music in one major regard: secular music
did not exist in African traditions. Besides sacred music, Europeans
sang about love, war, and drinking, as well as the recent historical
events of nearby villages, or far off countries. While many of these
songs mentioned God in some manner, many still remained secular and
popular among the village and country folk.
All African music was naturally sacred and the concept of
singing secular music was alien to them. Their music can be seen to
satisfy four main functions in the fabric daily life, they are:
religious, agricultural and sexual fertility, hunting, and war. In
this regard African music has more in common with Native American
music than European music since song was used as a means of being in
harmony with nature and the cosmos.
One predominant style of music that is still retained and was brought
to America during the slavery period of the early 1600s to 1865, is
the call and response pattern in which a leader sings a line and the
entire group answers. Typical styles also included drums and other
percussion instruments played a complex rhythmic accompaniment.
(Sound familiar? A good example of this call and response style with
syncopated rhythms can be heard by Ray Charles who used this to great
advantage on his hit "What'd I Say").
Slavery Era
From the need to subjugate, or from fear, many American slave
owners did not allow blacks to use traditional African instruments,
nor could they play or sing their native music. Gradually much of
the words and melodies were forgotten and disappeared in North
America. It is because of this ban on their musical ancestral link,
that a new African American style of music was created. New songs
were created using the African traditions of harmony, call and
response, behind a strong rhythmic meter mixed with European
traditions of harmony and musical instruments. Gospel songs created
by blacks used Christian subjects with African vocal and rhythmic
influences. The church became a sanctuary for black slave
expression. It was the only place that groups of slaves could
congregate without fear of white supervision. Though not all slave
holders allowed religious instruction or permission to worship and
had to meet secretly. he enslavement of blacks in the American Colonies began
during the 1600's. Slavery flourished in the South, where large
plantations grew cotton, tobacco, and other crops. The plantations
required many laborers. Work songs and "field hollers" were used to
ease the drudgery of hard labor in the fields, later they were sung
while laying railroad track, or while working in places such as the
many turpentine camps in the mid 1800s.
Slavery was less profitable in the North, where economic activity
centered on small farms and industries. By 1860, the slave states
had about 4 million slaves. The slaves made up nearly a third of the
South's population. Since demographically, more blacks lived in the
South, the birth of gospel music became endemic first in the South
before it was finally spread to the rest of white America. First,
through traveling minstrel shows in the late 1800s, then through
vaudeville and sheet music in the early 1900s, and finally through
records in the early 1920s. Many of the songs and melodies were
embraced by whites and began to greatly influence white religious and
popular American music.
By the early 1800s it was common for slaves to perform for
their masters, and later in front of polite white society in larger
musical ensembles, but it wasn't until the end of the Civil War that
European musical instruments were abundantly available to former
slaves. Instruments were literally left on battlefields that were
befriended by new black owners. Instruments were cheap and freed
blacks used what little new income they had to purchase or barter for
them. Although some blues forms existed in the early 1800s, as the
end of the 1800s drew near the first black secular music, the "blues" began to evolve almost instantly and simultaneously all over the
states and territories, where ever large groups of blacks lived.
Technically the field holler was the first musical style to
move away from religious themes and concerned its self with work only
(and much can be said about the double meanings of many gospel songs,
such as Swing Low, Sweet Chariot which on the surface is about life
in the hereafter, but any slave knew it was about the promise of life
in the here and now devoid of slavery. "home" wasn't necessarily
heaven, but of freedom instead. Some historians argue that all early
gospel songs were codified songs of protest). However, blues was the
first solely secular form of African American based music with the
birth of ragtime and jazz following closely behind
