Gospel / Spiritual Soul & R&B
familyStarted 1958Peak 1968-1999Last big hit still active
Soul and R&B steeped in Black church practice: choir swells, organ and Hammond drawbars, call-and-response, vamps that build to a shout, and melisma carried straight from the gospel circuit. The lyric register is faith, testimony, redemption and uplift, the voice always reaching upward, sweat and conviction over polish.
History
Rooted in the postwar gospel boom, the sound crossed over as Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin carried church phrasing into secular soul, while the Hawkins and Winans families and choirs like Edwin Hawkins built a sacred-soul lineage. Kirk Franklin urbanized it in the 1990s; Maverick City and Sunday Service renewed it in the 2020s.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aretha_Franklin
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_Franklin
- https://vibe.com/2019/01/music-sermon-kirk-franklin-remixed-gospel
- https://gospelmusic.org/news/bishop-hezekiah-walkers-every-praise-now-certified-platinum-with-1-million-sold