From Chapter 3, African Americans, "The Blues as Protest Music", p.95 through "Soul", ending p.104.
We're beginning to watch these forms of music come together. The Soul Stirrer will tell is something about how popular music in general begins to intermingle with Gospel Music. I think you'll find the career of Sam Cooke interesting, and hopefully enjoy his music as well. A sampling appears in the video below.
I had mentioned in class last Wednesday that I was thinking of making your "resource contributions" a graded assignment. I have decided that I will do this, evaluating the regularity with which you comment and the notes you attach to your comment. Starting with today, I'd like to have you add a minimum of one resource per class assignment. This can take the form of a link to a recording, website (such as you'll find under Sam Cooke's picture) or something else pertinent. The "details" (the note) can be a brief statement of what you've added and why you think it will be useful to us as a group as we dig deeper and deeper into songs of Protest and Praise.
To find materials, start with the reading assignment and use search engines like Google, or Archive.org. Remember that you can search for names of songs, music types, performers, or anything in particular you might want to know more about. For example Heilbut mentions a song called "Ain't no grave can hold my body down." I typed this into Google search, and here's what came up.
I'm not going to look through 254,000 results. The first will be advertisements, then the rest in terms of popularity. But I can narrow the results by clicking on one of the links at the top. The first showing one always gets is from the web. But look what one gets by clicking on images.The picture is an abbreviated one. Click on it to see what I saw.
Below is the one I clicked upon. To actually hear the Johnny Cash Version, click on the image below..
The rest will come easy with a little practice. Click on resources, find your name, and chick on Add. That will open a menu, and you'll most often want to click on "Add Web Links (URLs)
Paste the URL in the Web Address Box. Give the resource a short name in the box below, click on the add details line which will add a third box, Type in a brief reflection on why you found this particular thing interesting and worth sharing, and then click upload link.
BTW, the video above is by Sam Cook--remember his picture way, way above?
Read, in Heilbut
Chapter 6, Reverend Brewster and the Ward Singers, pp. 98 - 113
Chapter 7, Reverend Julius Cheeks and Reverend Claude Jeter: The Fathers of Soul pp.115 -130
Moving on, we'll start to see the beginnings of a kind of Gospel Music which still has an audience today. I'm going to do my best to keep my mouth (and my videos) shut, and see what you've found interesting. Here are my two contributions. They are related. A church mentioned in the chapter is just a couple of blocks away on the map. See if you can find it.
Read, in Heilbut
Chapter 8, Bessie Can Moan and Move a Mountain, pp. 131-143
Chapter 9, Professor Alex Bradford: "The Singing Rage". pp.145 - 157
Chapter 10, "I Won't Let Go of My Faith": Dorothy Love Coats, pp. 159 -169
Moving Further it will seem a bit as if we're moving in circles. We've encountered Robert Anderson before, and here, we'll see him again. We're finishing a section which primarily focuses on mini-biographies of singers prominent in the time when Heilbut became entranced by the Gospel Sound. As is usual, one singer/composer forms the focus, others make appearances, either because they were influenced by, or influenced the primary person in the chapter. Once again, I'm going to try to let you take over the class--be prepared. I promise not to go to sleep. Here's a preview:
