I'm looking for music that features I can best describe as "swelling gospel choirs". The Autotune The News guys do a great pastiche of the style... the elements that jump out at me being the call and response and the introduction of melodic theme that's later repeated with far more voices in major key and occasionally jazz-inflected harmony (the refrain "Made in america!" towards the end is a perfect example). Some other exemplary tracks: Fired Up, All These Things That I Have Done, Souled Out, Get By. Is there some ur-gospel group that these artists are drawing from? I'm especially interested in acapella tracks, or those with minimal accompaniment, or those that sample acapella tracks.
posted by phrontist on Nov 1, 2009 - 10 answers

What technology would have been available to Biblical census-takers? [more inside]
posted by Fiasco da Gama on May 3, 2009 - 10 answers

Help me remember this folk/bluegrass/gospel song! [more inside]
posted by wabashbdw on Mar 10, 2009 - 3 answers

Can anybody recommend some traditional black gospel recordings? [more inside]
posted by punkfloyd on Sep 30, 2008 - 25 answers

Tell me of your favorite hip hop joints that feature a gospel style chorus. [more inside]
posted by jammy on Sep 14, 2008 - 11 answers

Bass Gospel Vocalist: Gospel. Recent Public Radio Interview? [more inside]
posted by prettyboyfloyd on Feb 3, 2008 - 1 answer

Growing up a white boy in a white Oklahoma church, we always had some small influence of the Gospel tradition, but always sanitized for the white tradition of our past. But when I listen to the old Black spirituals, it affects me like nothing in the Baptist church I grew up with: a sense of the spiritual and the passion that I never felt in my choirs. But where should I start to learn the basics?
posted by fishmasta on Nov 24, 2007 - 16 answers

One dark and stormy Sunday morning, I heard a gospel song about a woman in the Lockerbie plane crash on the radio... [more inside]
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy on Apr 24, 2007 - 6 answers

[SchoolOfRockFilter] I'm teaching an EFL class of four high school students in rural Taiwan. There's a reading on music history about early African-American musical idioms (blues, gospel, ragtime, early jazz). It's TERRIBLY dull reading, especially considering names like Duke Ellington and Ma Rainey mean absolutely nothing to them. To liven it up a bit, I'd like to make a mix CD with 5-6 songs, print up the lyrics, and teach them that. What songs would you suggest? [more inside]
posted by alidarbac on Feb 4, 2007 - 10 answers

Songfilter: "Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus. Hallelujah." [more inside]
posted by Evstar on Dec 27, 2005 - 5 answers