From Gospel to Rock and Roll

January 17, 2016 11:42 AM

My current project involves a little research into gospel music history, how it influenced rock and other genres, and musicians who crossed over from gospel to rock (like Sam Cooke). Can anyone help me out with any part of that? It would be difficult to acquire a book right now, so online reading is best. Have read some articles but still looking for something substantial.
posted by mermaidcafe to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

You might find a little information in the documentary "Twenty Feet From Stardom", which is about backup singers and talks a lot about how they came to be a thing as well as how that production style influenced 20th century rock music. I don't remember if any of the people they follow started as Gospel singers, but it's definitely the right ballpark. And either way, it's streaming on Netflix and will only take about two hours of your time to figure out if there's anything relevant to your project.
posted by Sara C. at 2:16 PM on January 17, 2016

Having lived not far from Tupelo, MS for a few years, I know that Elvis was strongly rooted in gospel. You can do a Google scholar search for gospel and Elvis and you'll find a ton of stuff about his start.
posted by patheral at 2:18 PM on January 17, 2016

check out Rolling Stone - they did your heavy lifting with their bio of Aretha among others.
posted by ptm at 6:49 PM on January 17, 2016

Al Green is, of course one of those artists who went back and forth between the spheres of worldly music and holy. You might find this documentary interesting. It's a place to start.

There was some good insight in Robin Kelley's biography of Thelonious Monk about the time Monk spent on the Gospel Circuit early in his career. It's not terribly extensive but it'll give you a good feel for that world.
posted by cleroy at 7:03 PM on January 17, 2016

Two artists that quickly come to mind: Aretha Franklin, daughter of a very famous preacher, came out of the church to become the queen of soul. Also, (The Reverend) Al Green went the other way, producing incredible mainstream soul music, then retreating back to the church.
posted by MacChimpman at 7:06 PM on January 17, 2016

Craig Werner's A CHANGE IS GONNA COME gets heavily into this. If you can't acquire it, you can see how far you can get using Google Books search ... https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Change_is_Gonna_Come.html?id=TRnEdRBTih4C
posted by blueshammer at 8:22 PM on January 17, 2016

Here are a few links I found that may be helpful to you:

http://www.kusp.org/playlists/crosscurrents/history.html

https://books.google.com/books?id=1nKug6E0Wa4C&pg=PT7&lpg=PT7&dq=gospels+influence+on+soul+and+r%26b&source=bl&ots=_LP8f3zkEw&sig=1KHfzNlo6Eotmk9iJjyvD0NJQ8o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RfF-UfOrLoiu8QSc5YC4AQ&ved=0CFUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=gospels%20influence%20on%20soul%20and%20r%26b&f=false

http://teachrock.org/lesson/gospel-music-and-the-birth-of-soul/

https://books.google.com/books?id=5VXyAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=ray+charles+gospel+music+influence+i+got+a+woman&source=bl&ots=CkYmMUJURV&sig=-7NRKISyoGOd6INd9E9cF-MdV8I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNnvrdwbLKAhUK6iYKHXmLC5sQ6AEIPjAF#v=onepage&q=ray%20charles%20gospel%20music%20influence%20i%20got%20a%20woman&f=false
posted by gilast at 8:43 PM on January 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of the most fascinating characters along these lines, to me, is Doug Pinnick of the band King's X. Although they never liked the label of "Christian rock," they clearly had very Christian themes in their early work - I remember buying their first album in a Zondervan store.

Then, gradually, it appeared that Doug was losing his faith. I will never forget seeing them at a little club here in Louisville around that time, and the Christian fans were distraught - the band was hanging out in the bar after the show, and several fans were bringing him photocopies of articles that they thought might be helpful, with passages highlighted, trying to help him keep the faith.
posted by jbickers at 2:28 AM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Of course rock in general was more influenced by blues than gospel, but the lines between blues, gospel, and r&b were all pretty fluid until the 60s.

There are plenty of connecting points you could research from, like James Brown starting out in choir and gospel. The Staple Singers who started as strictly gospel, then transitioned to secular soul which crossed paths with rock via the anti-war movement (here's their version of For What It's Worth). Aretha's younger sister, Erma was doing covers of the Doors, and also released her Piece of My Heart a year before Janice Joplin's version. The Pointer Sisters were also daughters of a reverend and sang gospel as kids before getting into all kinds of stuff from backing vocals for Boz Scaggs to disco, r&b, and even some country. Wilson Pickett also started out in gospel before his r&b and crossover hits. I guess lots of the r&b artists of the 60s got their start in gospel.
posted by p3t3 at 6:10 AM on January 18, 2016

Hi. I heard an interesting episode of American Routes that had Candi Staton on as a guest and talked a lot about her journey from church music to popular. If you search for her on the American Routes website it comes up as this one: October 28th, 2015
THE NEXT ELVIS: Mysteries of Rock and Soul • FULL SHOW but it won't seem to let me link to it directly. (Useless sidenote, all these years listening to the show on the radio I pictured it as American Roots and my mind is a little blown right now.)
posted by eggkeeper at 4:07 PM on January 18, 2016