Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for A City Called Heaven by Robert M. Marovich - Available

A City Called Heaven

Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music

by Robert M. Marovich
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Read a sample Read a sample
1 of 1 copy available
In A City Called Heaven, Robert M. Marovich follows gospel music from early hymns and camp meetings through its growth into the sanctified soundtrack of the city's mainline black Protestant churches. Marovich mines print media, ephemera, and hours of interviews with artists, ministers, and historians—as well as relatives and friends of gospel pioneers—to recover forgotten singers, musicians, songwriters, and industry leaders. He also examines the entrepreneurial spirit that fueled gospel music's rise to popularity and granted social mobility to a number of its practitioners. As Marovich shows, the music expressed a yearning for freedom from earthly pains, racial prejudice, and life's hardships. Yet it also helped give voice to a people—and lift a nation.

A City Called Heaven celebrates a sound too mighty and too joyous for even church walls to hold.

|Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1

Part One: Roots 9
1. Got On My Traveling Shoes: Black Sacred Music and the Great Migration 11
2. "When the Fire Fell": The Sanctified Church Contribution to Chicago Gospel Music 27
3. Sacred Music in Transition: Charles Henry Pace and the Pace Jubilee Singers 48
4. Turn Your Radio On: Chicago Sacred Radio Broadcast Pioneers 58
5. "Someday, Somewhere": The Formation of the Gospel Nexus 71
6. Sweeping through the City: Thomas A. Dorsey and the Gospel Nexus (1932 - 1933) 87
7. Across This Land and Country: New Songs for a New Era (1933-1939) 112
8. From Birmingham to Chicago: The Great Migration of the Gospel Quartet 132

Part Two: Branches 147
9. Sing a Gospel Song: The 1940s, Part One 149
10. "If It's in Music — We Have It": The Fertile Crescent of Gospel Music Publishing 167
11. "Move On Up a Little Higher": The 1940s, Part Two 179
12. Postwar Gospel Quartets: "Rock Stars of Religious Music" 204
13. The Gospel Caravan: Midcentury Melodies 229
14. "He Could Just Put a Song on His Fingers": Second-Generation Gospel Choirs 260
15. "God's Got a Television": Gospel Music Comes to the Living Room 281
16. "Tell It Like It Is": Songs of Social Significance 297
17. One of These Mornings: Chicago Gospel at the Crossroads 317

Appendix A. 1920s African American Sacred Music Recordings Made in Chicago 331
Appendix B. African American Sacred Music Recordings Made in Chicago, 1930-1941 335
Notes 337
Bibliography 389
General Index 401
Index of Songs 435

Illustrations follow page 228| Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research in Recorded Blues, Gospel, Soul, or R&B, Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), 2016. — Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC)
|Robert M. Marovich hosts "Gospel Memories" on Chicago's WLUW 88.7 FM and is founder and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Gospel Music, www.journalofgospelmusic.com.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Music in American Life

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 21, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780252097089
      • File size: 9778 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780252097089
      • File size: 9085 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      April 1, 2015

      Although gospel music is often associated with the American South, radio host (WLUW, Chicago) and Journal of Gospel Music editor Marovich shows how Chicago was its reputed center circa 1920-70, using an intriguing railway metaphor for the influx of many artists from New Orleans and other Southern cities as part of the Great Black Migration to Northern industrial centers. While Mahalia Jackson, Thomas A. Dorsey, and James Cleveland are recognized today, many other soloists and groups recorded and toured, and their successes and trials are fully explored. The African American churches at the forefront of the city's cultural life and associations sponsoring community choirs were both key to the spread of this new musical genre. Rivalries among preachers and the talented vocalists or instrumentalists associated with them add human interest, as do interviews; these appear alongside excerpts from the Chicago Defender. Contemporary photographs provide rich historical context; it is a shame more of them are not dated. The discography and bibliography are thorough and contribute to scholarship. VERDICT Marovich's excellent book should appeal to both academic historians and Chicago-area music fans. It opens a window on an important part of 20th-century Americana that has been little explored heretofore.--Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH

      Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading