Previous Page: Thomas Dorsey promoted gospel battles of songs that pitted well-known groups against each other in hot and heavy sing-offs. On a parallel track, the self-proclaimed Father of the Blues: W.C. Handy, was turning that musical form into a flourishing entrepreneurial endeavour. One of the first to use the blues in a song title in 1912 entitled Memphis Blues. W.C. Handy was not so much a true creative innovator but a canny marketer, who had the foresight to publish a spate of quintessential blues standards such as Yellow Dog Blues, St. Louis Blues and Beale Street Blues. In the early years of commercial incarnations, blues and gospel often co-existed peacefully side by side. The astonishing Sister Rosetta Tharpe was able to bring gospel music to a decidedly secular setting when she performed with Cab Calloway at the Cotton Club in Harlem in the early 1930’s. Sister Rosetta Tharpe had a voice that could convert the wicked even in that plush den of iniquity. Sister Rosetta became the first gospel professional to record for the Decca recording company in 1938. By the 1940’s and the beginning of World War II, gospel and blues were both booming businesses, spearheaded by savvy black musicians who parlayed their cultural heritage into wads mammon. Gospel served as a training ground for talented vocalists and musical innovations who made their mark in soul music and R&B. |
