Entry · catalog no. 8304
gospel
/ /ˈɡɒspəl/ /GOSS-pul
noun · Chicago · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
Sacred music of the Black church sung in praise and testimony, led by a soloist, quartet or choir and carried by call and response, handclaps and a rhythmic piano or organ. As a Black genre it took its modern shape in the 1930s, and the word also names the older white revival hymnody it borrowed its label from.
“Mother sang gospel in the choir Sunday and the blues on the porch Monday, and she kept the two apart.”
Origin & Attribution
The words gospel song entered print in 1874 with Philip Bliss's Gospel Songs: A Choice Collection of Hymns and Tunes, from the white mass-revival movement; the label was borrowed, not Black-coined. Black gospel as its own tradition took shape in 1930s Chicago, where Thomas A. Dorsey moved from blues to sacred composition and set up a publishing house, and where the National Baptist Convention publicly endorsed Black gospel at its 1930 meeting; some scholars date traditional Black gospel to then. Radio widened its audience in the 1920s and after. The form draws on spirituals, the shout and the blues sound, and its singers and choirs built it into a worldwide devotional music.
1874
Bliss publishes Gospel Songs, the first printed use of gospel song
1930
National Baptist Convention endorses Black gospel; Dorsey's Chicago work begins
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Chicago · 1930s
Spoken by
Black churchgoers, choirs and quartets; sung worldwide
$GOSPELThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady0 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1930
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
1930
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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Atlanta, GA
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Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Philip Bliss, Gospel Songs: A Choice Collection of Hymns and Tunes (1874)
1874
■
+ Cite a sourceNational Baptist Convention annual meeting endorsing Black gospel music (1930)
1930
See also