We'Ll Understand It Better By And By

From the congregations of small African churches in Memphis, Philadelphia, and Chicago to the nationwide fans of the Golden Gate Quartet, Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke, Edwin Hawkins and others, gospel music has profoundly influenced Americans. This book brings together some of the best pioneering composers and shows the impact of their work on music and culture in America and abroad.

From the congregations of small African churches in Memphis, Philadelphia, and Chicago to the nationwide fans of the Golden Gate Quartet, Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke, Edwin Hawkins and others, gospel music has profoundly influenced American culture. This book brings together some of the best pioneering composers and shows the impact of their work. Illustrations.

From the congregations of small African churches in Memphis, Philadelphia, and Chicago to the nationwide fans of the Golden Gate Quartet, Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke, Edwin Hawkins and others, gospel music has profoundly influenced Americans. This book brings together some of the best pioneering composers and shows the impact of their work on music and culture in America and abroad.

Publishers Weekly

A curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and a noted gospel singer herself, Reagon presents a superb collection of essays--by academics who are also gospel performers or record producers--that focus on major figures in black gospel music: Charles A. Tindley, Lucie Campbell Williams, Thomas A. Dorsey, William H. Brewster Sr., Roberta Martin and Kenneth Morris. Highlights here are oral histories by Brewster and Morris, from interviews conducted by Reagon; a roundtable discussion by several former members of the Roberta Martin Singers; and Michael Harris's explication of Dorsey's life as a complex dialectic of the sacred and secular traditions of African-American culture. There is a no less profound tension between the messianic fervor of black Baptist and Pentecostal ritual practice, convincingly depicted in essays by Horace Clarence Boyer and Rev. Charles Walker, and an explicitly social gospel, as evidenced in Reagon's essay on Tindley. Finally, the dictates of the marketplace could not be avoided by even the most devoutly religious gospel performer, as Kenneth Morris, a music publisher and composer, reminds Reagon in an interview. Boyer's essays on each of the six composers are elegant combinations of biography and musical analysis, although some of the latter may be beyond the comprehension of non-musicians. Illustrations, bibliography and discography. (Feb.)

Bernice Johnson Reagon is Distinguished Professor of History at American University. The author of many works, including Black People and Their Culture, she selected and annotated the landmark three-record album collection Voices of the Civil Rights Movement and was narrator and conceptual producer of "Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions," a joint project of the Smithsonian Institution and National Public Radio. A 1989 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, Reagon is the founder and artistic director of the a cappella quintet Sweet Honey in the Rock.