Gospel Music

Though gospel music can be an extremely broad term, it is mainly recognized as the music that sprung from the early African-American church and inspired a host of modern day choirs and contemporary gospel/R&B sounds.

What most people would identify today as 'gospel' began very differently 85 years ago. The gospel music that Thomas A. Dorsey, Sallie Martin, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Willie Mae Ford Smith and other pioneers popularized, had its roots in the more freewheeling forms of religious devotion of 'Sanctified' or 'Holiness' churches, sometimes called 'holy rollers' by other denominations. They encouraged individual church members to 'testify', speaking or singing spontaneously about their faith and experience of the Holy Ghost and "Getting Happy", sometimes while dancing in celebration.