If this is your first page of entry please head for the start and read the articles in order! By the close of the 19 century, a professional cast of black musicians had begun to make their mark on mainstream American music. Their song in sharp contrast to the heavenly hymnody of the spirituals. In addition, the blues quickly came to signify all the varieties of sin and suffering to which the flesh is heir. Blues singers became a different kind of priestly figure for the community, sanctifying the secular and taking as their blessed sacraments of whisky and women, high living and hard times. Yet, for all the appeal of the blues, sacred music, especially gospel still held a powerful place in black consciousness.

The term gospel music was coined in 1875 by hymn writer Ira Sankey, but its emergence in the 1930’s as a lucrative form of church music is commonly attributed to one man: thomas Dorsey, the Father of Gospel Music. In Thomas Dorsey’s hands, gospel was a coolly calculated commercial endeavour designed to capitalise on the enormous appeal of Negro spirituals. In the early days of the 1930’s he founded Dorsey’s “House of Music in Chicago, which was the first publishing firm dedicated to the development and dissemination of the of black gospel performers. By the end of the decade, Thomas Dorsey’s gospel empire was in full swing.