The Bibliography lists recommended gospel music books with full publication details provided for further reference. Most of these books were used as sources for the website. Following the Bibliography is a list of ‘Internet Resources’, i.e. website names and addresses (URLs), again used as sources for the website. On a separate ‘Bibliography/Discography Combos’ page is a list of recommended Book / CD combinations.
The Bibliography starts with ‘General Gospel Music Books’, followed by ‘Gospel Music Catalogues’, then books on individual Gospel Singers (in alphabetical order), interjected with gospel books on particular themes. I hope you find the content useful. If you have any recommendations of your own, or comments on the list, please let me know.
Some of the books listed are now out of print and hence unavailable to buy new. You may be lucky and come across an old copy. If you have any gospel music books you don’t want, please let me know.
Whilst I have taken every care to ensure details are correct, you may spot a mistake. If you do, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I can. Thanks,
Alan White.
Email: alan.white@earlygospel.com
General Gospel Music Books
| Title: |
Songsters and Saints : Vocal Traditions on Race Records |
| Author: |
Paul Oliver |
| Publisher: |
Cambridge University Press |
| Date Published: |
1984 |
| ISBN: |
0-521-26942-3 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
The Spiritual and the Blues |
| Author: |
James H. Cone |
| Publisher: |
Orbis Books |
| Date Published: |
1992 |
| ISBN: |
0-88344-747-9 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
The New Grove: Gospel, Blues and Jazz |
| Author: |
Paul Oliver, Max Harrison and William Bolcom |
| Publisher: |
Macmillan |
| Date Published: |
1986 |
| ISBN: |
0-333-40785-7 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
Saints and Sinners
Religion, Blues and (D)evil in African-American Music and Literature |
| Author: |
Edited by Robert Sacré |
| Publisher: |
Université de Liège |
| Date Published: |
1996 |
| ISBN: |
|
| Notes: |
Proceedings of the Conference held by Société Liégeoise de Musicologie at the Université de Liège in October 1991 |
| Title: |
The Music of Black Americans – A History |
| Author: |
Eileen Southern,
Professor Emerita of Music and Afro-American Studies, Harvard University |
| Publisher: |
W. W. Norton & Company |
| Date Published: |
1997 (Third Edition) |
| ISBN: |
0-393-03843-2 |
| Notes: |
A history of the several genres and many styles of music which, taken together, define African-American music in the United States. |
| Title: |
Readings In Black American Music |
| Author: |
Compiled and Edited by Eileen Southern,
Professor Emerita of Music and Afro-American Studies, Harvard University |
| Publisher: |
W. W. Norton & Company |
| Date Published: |
1983 (Second Edition) |
| ISBN: |
0-393-95280-0 |
| Notes: |
A collection of readings of the history of black American music from the seventeenth century to the present time, originally intended to serve as a companion work to the author’s “The Music of Black Americans” – see above. |
| Title: |
Lost Delta Found
Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942 |
| Author: |
Manuscripts by John W. Work, Lewis Wade Jones and Samuel C. Adams, Jr. Edited by Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov |
| Publisher: |
Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville |
| Date Published: |
2005 |
| ISBN: |
0-8265-1485-5 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
To Do This, You Must Know How: Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition (American Made Music Series) |
| Author: |
Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff |
| Publisher: |
University Press of Mississippi |
| Date Published: |
2015 |
| ISBN: |
978-1496802484 |
| Notes: |
To Do This, You Must Know How traces black vocal music instruction and inspiration from the halls of Fisk University to the mining camps of Birmingham and Bessemer, Alabama, and on to Chicago and New Orleans.
Review: This pioneering book sets a new standard of excellence for work in the field of gospel music. It is a serious scholarly study based on much original research, very strongly footnoted, but remains free of jargon and so is exquisitely readable. Chapter one details the origins of the genre, from 1850s references to the Fisk ante-bellum era, showing the development of group harmony through the Jubilee period, focusing on the person of John Work II in Nashville. Chapter two deals with the Birmingham singers, and the movement from choral style to quartet arrangement. It discusses in detail, but not in arcane musical theory, the nuts and bolts of how these less formal arrangements developed and were taught, and highlights the place of gospel trainers, as opposed to choir directors, and also moving from strictly written to aural sources. Chapter three shows the movement to Chicago, with a fine re-assessment of the roll of Thomas A. Dorsey, Chapter four concludes with the gospel movement in New Orleans and the eventual decline of the genre when stylistic changes and public taste changed. This is a seminal, original and significant work that is necessary for anyone interested in black music who has even a passing familiarity to gospel music. |
| Title: |
Take Me To The Water
Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950 |
| Authors: |
Photographs from the collection of Jim Linderman, Essays by Jim Linderman and Luc Santi, Notes on Songs and Sermons by Steven Lance Ledbetter.
Songs and Sermons from 1924-1940 from the collections of Joe Bussard, Steven Lance Ledbetter, Frank Mare and Roger Misiewicz. |
| Publisher: |
Dust-To-Digital, Atlanta, Georgia |
| Date Published: |
2009 |
| ISBN: |
|
| Notes: |
Accompanying 25 track CD of songs and sermons. |
| Title: |
People Get Ready!
A New History of Black Gospel Music |
| Author: |
Robert Darden |
| Publisher: |
Continuum International Publishing Group, New York |
| Date Published: |
2004 |
| ISBN: |
0-8264-1436-2 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
The Frog Blues & Jazz Annual
The Musicians, the Records and the Music of the 78 era |
| Author: |
Edited by Paul Swinton |
| Publisher: |
Frog Records Ltd |
| Date Published: |
Annually: No. 1 published in 2010, No. 2 published in 2011 |
| ISBN: |
978-0-9564717-1-0 |
| Notes: |
Series of research articles alongside some affectionate glimpses at the Musicians, the Records and the Music of the 78 era, including articles on gospel musicians and music. |
| Title: |
Afro-Muse
The Evolution of Afro-American Music |
| Author: |
Ian C. Dawkins Moore |
| Publisher: |
Smashwords.com |
| Date Published: |
2009 |
| ISBN: |
|
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music |
| Author: |
Robert M. Marovich |
| Publisher: |
University of Illinois Press |
| Date Published: |
2015 |
| ISBN: |
978-0252080692 |
| Notes: |
In A City Called Heaven, gospel announcer and music historian Robert Marovich shines a light on the humble origins of a majestic genre and its indispensable bond to the city where it found its voice: Chicago. Marovich follows gospel music from early hymns and camp meetings through the Great Migration that brought it to Chicago. In time, the music grew into the sanctified soundtrack of the city’s mainline black Protestant churches. |
| Title: |
Happy in the Service of the Lord:
Afican American Sacred Vocal Harmony Quartets in Memphis |
| Author: |
Kip Lornell |
| Publisher: |
The University of Tennessee Press |
| Date Published: |
1995 (Second Edition) |
| ISBN: |
0-87049-877-0 |
| Notes: |
“Happy in the Service of the Lord” provides an in-depth look at the development of the African-American gospel quartet. Focusing argely on Memphis – long famous for its blues, jazz, and soul music – Kip Lornell reveals the special contributions that quartet members have made to the cultural and musical identity of the city. |
Gospel Music Catalogues
| Title: |
Blues & Gospel Records (1890-1943) |
| Author: |
Dixon, Godrich and Rye |
| Publisher: |
Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK |
| Date Published: |
1997 (Fourth Edition) |
| ISBN: |
0-19-816239-1 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
Uncloudy Days – The Gospel Music Encyclopedia |
| Author: |
Bill Carpenter |
| Publisher: |
Backbeat Books |
| Date Published: |
2005 |
| ISBN: |
978-0-87930-841-4 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
Afro-American Religious Music
A Biliography and A Catalogue of Gospel Music |
| Author: |
Compiled by Irene V. Jackson |
| Publisher: |
Greenwood Press |
| Date Published: |
1979 |
| ISBN: |
0-313-20560-4 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music |
| Author: |
Edited by W. K. McNeil |
| Publisher: |
Routledge |
| Date Published: |
2010 |
| ISBN: |
978-0-415-87569-1 |
| Notes: |
|
Gospel Music Composers
| Title: |
We’ll Understand It Better By and By |
| Author: |
Edited by Bernice Johnson Reagon |
| Publisher: |
Smithsonian Institution Press |
| Date Published: |
1992 |
| ISBN: |
978-1-56098-167-1 |
| Notes: |
|
Gospel Singers
| Reverend Gary Davis |
| Title: |
Oh, What A Beautiful City
A Tribute to The Reverend Gary Davis (1896-1972) |
| Author: |
Compiled by Robert Tilling |
| Publisher: |
Mel Bay Publications, Inc. |
| Date Published: |
2010 |
| ISBN: |
978-078668258-4 |
| Notes: |
|
| The Dixie Hummingbirds |
| Title: |
Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds / Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music |
| Author: |
Jerry Zolten |
| Publisher: |
Oxford University Press |
| Date Published: |
2003 |
| ISBN: |
978-0195152722 |
| Notes: |
From the Jim Crow world of 1920s Greenville, South Carolina, to Greenwich Village’s Café Society in the ’40s, to their 1974 Grammy-winning collaboration on “Loves Me Like a Rock,” the Dixie Hummingbirds have been one of gospel’s most durable and inspiring groups. Jerry Zolten tells the Hummingbirds’ fascinating story and with it the story of a changing music industry and a changing nation. |
| Thomas Andrew Dorsey |
| Title: |
The Rise of Gospel Blues |
| Author: |
Michael W. Harris |
| Publisher: |
Oxford University Press |
| Date Published: |
1992 |
| ISBN: |
0-19-506376-7 |
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
Development of African American Gospel Piano Style (1926-1960):
A Socio-Musical Analysis of Arizona Dranes and Thomas A. Dorsey |
| Author: |
Idella Lulamae Johnson |
| Publisher: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Date Published: |
2009 |
| ISBN: |
|
| Notes: |
|
| Arizona Juanita Dranes |
| Title: |
Development of African American Gospel Piano Style (1926-1960):
A Socio-Musical Analysis of Arizona Dranes and Thomas A. Dorsey |
| Author: |
Idella Lulamae Johnson |
| Publisher: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Date Published: |
2009 |
| ISBN: |
|
| Notes: |
|
| Title: |
He Is My Story : The Sanctified Soul of Arizona Dranes |
| Author: |
Michael Corcoran |
| Publisher: |
Tompkins Square www.tompkinssquare.com |
| Date Published: |
2012 |
| ISBN: |
978-0-615-61615-5 |
| Notes: |
The book includes a CD containing all 16 of Arizona Dranes’ recorded tracks, expertly remastered from the original OKeh label 78 RPM records by Grammy-winning producer Christopher King.
Click here for more information
Available from: www.tompkinssquare.com |
| Brother Claude Ely |
| Title: |
Ain’t No Grave: the Life and Legacy of Brother Claude Ely |
| Author: |
Macel Ely II |
| Publisher: |
Dust-to-Digital |
| Date Published: |
2011 |
| ISBN: |
978-0981734224 |
| Notes: |
360 page hardback biography with CD includes 290 sepia photographs
CD features rare and electrifying audio recordings of Pentecostal worship services in the mountains of Kentucky and Virginia accompanied by a fiery sermon preached by Brother Claude Ely. |
| Mahalia Jackson |
| Title: |
Got To Tell It: Mahalia Jackson Queen of Gospel |
| Author: |
Jules Schwerin |
| Publisher: |
Oxford University Press |
| Date Published: |
1992 |
| ISBN: |
0-19-507144-1 |
| Notes: |
|
| Sister Rosetta Tharpe |
| Title: |
Shout, Sister, Shout!
The Untold Story of Rock-And-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe |
| Author: |
Gayle F. Ward |
| Publisher: |
Beacon Press |
| Date Published: |
2007 |
| ISBN: |
978-0-8070-0985-7 |
| Notes: |
|
Internet Resources
