The Globalization of Gospel Music 2
This gospel program, which included a stellar cast of individuals such as Reverend James Cleveland, Shirley Caesar, Albertina Walker, Andrae Crouch, and many others, to the thousands who attended the Sultan's Pool amphitheater, was deemed a success worth repeating in the following years (Reily et al. 2016, 469).
Thomas Dorsey and his generation of gospel composers, musicians, and performers tapped into the roots of African American music and "imaginatively realign[ed] the indigenous African American spiritual" (Reily et al. 2016, 470). No longer bound to a cappella standards of performance, instruments of various kinds "were added to the mix of spirited congregational voices in the urban context" (Reily et al. 2016, 470), giving momentum to gospel music's global acceptance. Thus, it is appropriate in the context of this discussion on the globalization of gospel music to quote Mellonee Burnim's work extensively:
Less than two decades ago, gospel music was only available at mom-and-pop stores in segregated African American neighborhoods in the United States. It is now accessible in national chain outlets, from Walmart to Target, on national TV, and even on satellite radio. Once relegated to early weekday morning or Sunday only radio programs, such multiplatinum-selling gospel recording artists as Kirk Franklin, Mary Mary, Donnie McClurkin, and Yolanda Adams can now be heard routinely, not only on gospel stations, but also frequently as a part of popular secular music radio programming. By the advent of the twenty-first century, Billboard magazine had begun to document what it referred to as global gospel
; a burgeoning international market, which prior to that time had been nonexistent. In 1999 the trade magazine wrote: Indeed, more gospel artists than ever have become popular in countries like Sweden, Norway, England, Germany, South Africa, Italy, and Spain [including Poland and Japan] as gospel fever appears to be catching on around the world.
(Spratling & Press 2013, n.p.)
The following selected links on the next page give a virtual exploration of the "global gospel" sound of various choirs and soloists associated with the countries listed above.