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Southern Gospel Music Around The World

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Gospel music basically has its origins in the African American slaves who brought their African musical traditions to America and fused these traditions with the old Christian...

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Page 1: Southern Gospel Music Around The World

Southern Gospel Music Around The World

Gospel music basically has its origins in the African American slaves who brought their African musical

traditions to America and fused these traditions with the old Christian hymns. Several of these techniques,

including the blue note and syncopation make gospel music distinct from other kinds of music around today.

Gospel songs that arose from the African American fusion of Christian hymns and African musical tradition

began to achieve more exposure in the 1920s with the emergence of churches known as Sanctified or Holiness

churches.

Traveling preachers brought these kinds of music along with them wherever they went. Among the most

popular was Thomas Dorsey who was most responsible for popularizing gospel music in the 30s. These days,

gospel music is still reaching out and the spreading to Christian denominations all around the world.

There are many types of gospel music that arose from the original gospel genre. These are urban contemporary

gospel, gospel blues, southern gospel music, progressive southern gospel, Christian country music, bluegrass,

and Celtic.

Urban Contemporary gospel is the subgenre of gospel music that is most identified with the black heritage of

gospel music and is still marketed today as black gospel.

Blues is a form of gospel singing with a blues influence and a lot of guitar.

Southern gospel music is characterized by the all male quartets and with songs that talk about the hardships in

life and how God helps people overcome these hardships. Progressive Southern gospel music is an offshoot of

Southern gospel music.

Christian Country music is the subgenre of gospel music that does not have its origins in the African American

culture but is a major component of gospel music nonetheless. Christian country music has developed into a

more mainstream and contemporary form of musical worship, although it has come under criticism for being

too liberal and too main stream and losing the religious messages that gospel music was intended to spread.

Bluegrass gospel is county Christian music more prevalent in the mountains of America.

Celtic music is the kind of gospel music that thrives in such countries as Ireland. A popular proponent of Celtic

gospel music is the Dublin Gospel choir.

In most countries, there remains a distinction between church and religious music. With the popularity of

Christian contemporary music, more and more artists are dabbling between the two, embracing both religious

and secular forms of music.

There are some subgenres of gospel music, however, that have remained steadfast in the overt quality of their

worship in their music, very much unlike contemporary Christian music, which more often than not contained

double entendres in its lyrics, which means that the song can be applied to both religious and secular contexts.

Southern gospel music in particular has remained overt in the Christian messages of its lyrics despite the

infusion of bluegrass and jazz influences.

Written by Gary Harbin www.garyharbin.com Southern Gospel Music Around The World