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Overview

The intensity and enthusiasm accompanying a well-executed gospel song have all the trappings of engaging music that arrests the listener's attention. Its global exportation to other parts of the world or even just across state lines attests to this fact. Furthermore, each time someone outside of the African American community learns to perform gospel music, that contributes to the globalization of African American music in general. This lesson will expand on the development and globalization of gospel music.

Be ready to:

Name the essential musicians and describe the three watershed moments that were important to the globalization of gospel music.

Name and write about countries outside of the United States where gospel music has taken a foothold.

Articulate the importance of Kurtis Blow to the dissemination and expansion of rap and hip-hop music into the church's liturgy.

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Edwin Hawkins and "Oh, Happy Day"

Thirty-six years later, another watershed moment sent gospel music into a tailspin with the release of the gospel tune " Oh Happy Day♫ " that became a hit on the secular charts. Horace Boyer, commenting on this new contemporary gospel sound (as distinguished from " traditional gospel"), states:

By 1969, the entire United States and part of Europe were rocking, shouting[,] and dancing to an old [B]lack Baptist hymn called, "Oh Happy Day." A young holiness pianist and singer from California named Edwin Hawkins [1943-2018] had rearranged the song and recorded it with the Northern California State Youth Choir, and it "hit the charts." Since the diction on the record was comparable to that of most vocal recordings, and since gospel music generally evokes an emotional rather than intellectual reaction, most non-churchgoers missed that it was in fact a hymn. Hence, popping fingers and dancing was the physical reaction to it. When it was discovered that "Oh Happy Day" was a gospel song and yet evoked that kind of reaction, a great cry went up for more of the same.

(Boyer 1979, n.p.)

The Edwin Hawkins Singers performing at the 1970 Edison Awards

Edwin Hawkins (1943-2018) had a similar experience to Thomas Dorsey with Gospel ministers. The cultural editor of SFGATE, Dan Gentile, writes, "When 'Oh Happy Day' broke, the church was upset about it … and were thinking it was too jazzy. And to see people actually dancing to the music, not the sacred dance but doing the secular dance to music… Some people in the Black community didn't like that" (Gentile 2021, n.p.). According to Hawkins, "Oh Happy Day" was like nothing in mainstream gospel music at the time and was jarring to many in Black church circles.

Carpenter states, "We preach, and the Bible teaches, to take the Gospel into all the world, but when it all comes down, we don't want to do that with our music…. And the church world is quick to criticize that" (Carpenter n.d., 2). "They really ostracized Edwin Hawkins and his group for doing it" (Gentile 2021, n.p.). However, the ostracization of the group did not dampen Hawkins's desire to write more gospel songs, although none of them reached the status of "Oh Happy Day." After its release in 1969 as a single and the choir getting national exposure on the popular dance show American Bandstand a year later, it was selling over 900,000 copies (Alexander 2021, n.p.). Listen to the 1968 recording of " Oh Happy Day♫. "

Kurtis Blow

Hip-hop is incredible. If you travel outside of the country, everybody is into hip-hop. We live in a hip-hop generation. Hip-hop is the number one music in the whole world.

Thomas A. Dorsey

I was always a person who could not be stepped on easily. When I realized how hard people were fighting the gospel idea, I was determined to carry the banner.