Southern Gospel

Southern gospel is the white Southern American sacred-music tradition built around male vocal quartets — tenor, lead, baritone and bass — singing tight close-harmony arrangements of hymns and revival songs. Piano supplies rhythm and harmonic foundation; later groups added bass guitar, drums and pedal steel. The bass singer's role is particularly distinctive, descending well below conventional choral range to anchor the texture, while the tenor's high parts cut through the top. The repertoire ranges from convention-style new songs published in the small annual tune-books of Southern publishers to revivalist gospel standards, with arrangements that often build through repeated choruses with key changes and 'shout' endings.

The tradition grew out of the shape-note singing schools of the 19th-century South — the same lineage as Sacred Harp — but adopted seven-shape notation and a more melodic, sentimental hymnody after the Civil War. The Vaughan, Stamps-Baxter and Hartford music companies of the early 20th century published the small annual tune-books and trained the singing teachers who staffed local conventions and produced the touring quartets. James D. Vaughan's group began radio broadcasts in 1926. The Blackwood Brothers (founded 1934) and the Statesmen Quartet (founded 1948) defined the postwar professional standard; Elvis Presley, raised in this world, applied for membership in the Songfellows quartet as a teenager (he was rejected) and recorded gospel albums his entire career.

On a Blackwood Brothers recording of 'How Great Thou Art' (1957), listen for how the bass voice (J. D. Sumner) descends well below standard choral range and the tenor (Bill Shaw) sits above the lead — the wide vertical spacing is the genre's sonic fingerprint. The piano often plays in a rolling, gospel-blues-inflected manner with a steady left-hand bass walk. Many arrangements use a key change after the bridge into the final chorus as an emotional escalation.

The Blackwood Brothers' 'How Great Thou Art' (1957) is the canonical entry; their 'Above All' (1956) won the first Grammy ever awarded for a gospel performance in 1959. The Statesmen Quartet's 'Get Away Jordan' (1960) shows the more theatrical wing of the tradition.

Elvis Presley auditioned for the Songfellows quartet in 1954 and was rejected; he later included Blackwood Brothers bass singer J. D. Sumner in his stage shows and recorded his three gospel albums — 'His Hand in Mine' (1960), 'How Great Thou Art' (1967), 'He Touched Me' (1972) — with Southern-gospel personnel. His 'How Great Thou Art' won him the Grammy for Best Sacred Performance in 1967, his first of three Grammys, all of them for gospel rather than rock and roll.