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People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music

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People Get Ready! is an excellent read for anyone interested in the history of Christian music in the U.S. Darden takes time to explore how primary sources support or refute several competing theories about who influenced whom in the evolution of gospel music. He does a fascinating analysis of how frontier revivals and clandestine religious services held by slaves contributed to the integration of English lyrics with African music. He humbly approaches music history with passion for his subject, respect for his sources, and documented gratitude for the many archivists and researchers in Africa and North America who have laid the groundwork for this fascinating book. Darden shows that gospel music is the bridge linking the histories of Africa and North America.

"To truly understand American music, you must first attempt to understand the spirituals and gospel music," says former gospel music editor of Billboard magazine and author Robert Darden. "And it begins where it all began-Africa, a thousand years ago."

Darden, an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Baylor University has done his homework.* His research is extensive. People Get Ready! is informative and cites multiple sources.
"The aim of African music has always been to translate the experiences of life
and of the spiritual worlds into sound, enhancing and celebrating life."
Samuel Floyd

"Praise songs, songs of insult, boasting songs, litigation songs, mourning songs,
topical songs, story songs, love songs, heroic songs and religious songs, and the
repertoire of drum language constitute an important part of literature of African
peoples created, developed, maintained and transmitted through music."
J.H.Nketia, "The Musical Languages of Subsaharan Africa."


Work songs, also known as hollers, cries or whoops, contained rhythmic quality making work seem easier, be it rowing, picking cotton, or laying railroad ties. Many were performed as the "call and response".


Then there were the `spirituals' and plantation hymns with the master's whip keeping
time...


Eventually, America became fascinated with African-American music, which spread
because of the exodus of blacks from the deep South to Chicago.
From the spirituals came ragtime, followed by the blues, then jazz.

Some time during the migration, jubilee music, using quartets sang spirituals in
harmonized verse chorus arrangements.

Later, gospel music with its improvisation of individual expression evolved just as
spirituals did, by visions, trouble, sorrow, thanksgiving, and joy .


Darden includes a chapter dedicated to the Fathers of Gospel music, William H.
Sherwood, Charles A. Tindley, and the man behind the melding of blues to religious
hymns, Thomas A. Dorsey.

In another chapter, he tells of three black divas that helped transform American popular
music, as well as gospel, Rosetta Tharpe, Clara Ward, and the high priestess, Mahalia
Jackson.


The soul music of the 1960's produced artists that had their roots in gospel before
moving into the secular realm, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Lou Rawls, and Wilson
Picket.


The spiritual, biblical message proclaimed today is deemed `contemporary' gospel music.
Kirk Franklin summed it up, "We just let the music take us wherever the Spirit led us
and wherever the music wanted to go."


Robert Darden closes with, "In the beginning was the WORD...
And THE WORD got the funky beat, it became GOSPEL


*For his book, People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music, the ARSC
(Association for Recorded Sound Collections) 2005 Awards for Excellence in
Historical Records Sound Research awarded Mr. Darden "Best Research in Recorded
Rhythm and Blues, Soul, or Gospel Music."
The award is given to authors and publishers of books, articles, liner notes, and
monographs, in recognition for outstanding published research in the field of recorded
sound and encourages high standards to promote awareness of superior works.

This is a reprint of a review Published in the December 19 issue of Blueswax, the worlds biggest blues publication at www.blueswax.com It is reprinted with permission.

By: Bob Gersztyn

In People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music, Robert Darden traces the evolution of America's Black music from the first spirituals that were created by the displaced African slaves to the Gospel music industry as it exists at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He demonstrates how the songs, which expressed a codified secret language, survived because they were essential to the race's continued existence.
The author further demonstrates how the displaced Black race kept the essential elements for their survival in the form of a complex mythology that replaced their own native symbols. They used their new white masters' religion because it provided them with the only form of freedom available to them for nearly four hundred years. The resulting version of Christianity that they created was nearly identical to the original first century model, not because of fashion, but necessity. They understood one of the core messages of Christianity, that of freedom in the midst of injustice and oppression. Christianity not only provided all the theological elements necessary for their survival, but also included archetypal images like David and Goliath, and Moses leading the children of Israel out of captivity, which then provided the stories that fueled their spirituals. The messages of these songs were compatible with their oppressors' worldview, while providing hope where none could be seen.
The author demonstrates how the spirituals spawned both the jubilee singers and minstrelsy after the Civil War. The two groups often sang the same songs, but to different audiences with different arrangements and intentions, further demonstrating the division between the sacred and the profane. The mass migration from the South to the North after the Civil War resulted in the importation of the music to established cultural centers around the country, which further instigated its evolution. Northern cities like Chicago and Detroit provided the freedom and community needed for the further development of the music, as well providing a means to disseminate it. The author lets the words of John Lee Hooker and others make his point that "the Blues come from spirituals," (Downbeat magazine, 1964) demonstrating that the spirituals were the common source for Blues, Gospel, and Jazz.
Professor Darden's history includes biographies of many of the key artists and an analysis of both primitive songs as well as more contemporary ones. The book is over four hundred pages in length and includes seventy-five pages of detailed bibliography, as well as a discography. Using quotes to pepper biographies, including those by key artists, historians, and politicians like The Blind Boys of Alabama, James Cleveland, Andrae` Crouch, Thomas Dorsey, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, Kirk Franklin, The Golden Gate Quartet, W.C. Handy, John Lee Hooker, Mahalia Jackson, John and Alan Lomax, The Soul Stirrers, The Staple Singers, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Clara Ward, and Richard Waterman, to name some; the author gives the reader a first hand account of many key attitudes and issues.
Robert Darden was Billboard's Gospel music editor for ten years during the 1970s and '80s. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and has been the Senior Editor of The Door magazine, a religious satire magazine that has been in existence for over thirty years, since 1988. People Get Ready is his thirty-first book, but was first conceived as a labor of love over twenty years ago.

As a fan of Sam Cooke I started to listen to his earlier gospel music as a member of the Soul Stirrers and was very impressed. In classes and through reading more the story of spirituals and gospel became a great interest, though sometimes fragmented or too short.

But now I've read the excellent "People Get Ready!" and this book will tell you everything you need to know from the earliest beginnings in Africa to contemporary times.

He paints a picture from the Western African tribes and their styles of music, right through the coded ways of singing to elude the white slave masters. The most interesting part of the books ends for me somewhere in the 1960's.

You don't have to be religious (I'm not) to enjoy the music and the book. It is very clearly shown through Mr. Darden's writing that the influence of gospel on rock and roll, soul etc is great, a lot greater than many people think.

"People Get Ready" will teach you everything you need to know on the history of gospel, and through that also a large part of the history of rock and roll in America.

This book is a well-written history of black gospel. I found the style very informative yet entertaining. Robert Darden has pulled together many scattered resources into a great compilation that any history or music buff will enjoy reading. Much of this information was previously inaccessible or unknown until Darden's hard work. This was a book I really enjoyed reading.

From the moment I picked up People Get Ready, I was pulled into the drama of the music and culture of gospel music. Mr. Darden has done some hard research and yet has woven a fascinating story that goes far beyond the research...quite an accomplishment. This book should be a requirement for anyone whose heart and soul is touched by gospel.

The words sing off the page in People Get Ready. As an avid music lover, I knew jazz, rock, R&B, hymns, and black church music had some "hazy" connectivity. I felt it along the bones, but never appreciated the full story, which Darden unleashes with style and enthusiasm. Like a native guide in uncharted terrain, he moves from slave songs to post-Civil War music and onward to today, mixing interviews, research and reportage into a harmonic worldview of blues, jazz, jubilee, gospel and spiritual music. This is the kind of book a history buff and a music lover can enjoy equally. If you love music, it helps you find more music you love and understand your favorites more fully. If you love history, it helps put the modern musical scene into context as business, art, and spiritual catharsis.

Read it. Yes, that's a recommendation imperative. In Darden's exuberant and expert prose, the words have as much harmony as the songs they describe.

PS: I also enjoyed an interview I heard with the author on All Things Considered (the radio show from NPR):
[...]

Robert Darden has written more than thirty books (I've lost count), and many of them have been interesting, helpful, and pleasant to read. This one, however, is the best thing he has done. No wonder he has received national acclaim for People Get Ready! The reader can feel his profound respect for gospel music in every page--and it is contagious.

Bob Darden puts his heart and soul to work and took my heart and soul with him. I could not put this fabulous book down. The path to the creation of Gospel Music was a difficult road to travel. The road led to glory and we are transformed by it. Bob Darden clearly loves music and admires the musicians as folk heros. We, the readers, are taken down a mighty road. Mr. Darden has written over twenty books and "People Get Ready" is the most enjoyable of all. The research is excellent. The tale he wove is facinating. I tapped my toes and enjoyed the journey. This book is a must read. I would not be surprised if it made the best seller list in no time.

This book was my entree into the study of African-American music. I loved it when I first read it, carried along by Darden's obvious love of the subject, though I was not able to vouch for the level of his scholarship. Now, 8 months later, having read Cone, Samuel Floyd, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Christopher Small, Raboteau, Eileen Southern, Dana Epstein, Higginson, Elijah Wald and others, and then returning to this book, I find that Darden has indeed done his homework and synthesized a great deal of scholarship. I do agree that Darden is at his best up through the so-called "Golden Age of Gospel", and that the last chapters do not exude the same passion as one finds in Anthony Heilbut's work. Still, if one takes "Gospel music" to encompass slave songs, ring shouts, Jubilee songs as well as Tindley, Dorsey, Martin, Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia and James Cleveland, then this book should be of interest. Darden's passion for the music is infectious.