Sanctified Blues
Located in 2 routes
Sanctified Blues is hot, Spirit-filled sacred blues shaped by Holiness and Pentecostal worship: fast piano, handclaps, ecstatic vocals, shout rhythms, tambourines, and blues-inflected improvisation. Compared with devotional blues, it is louder, more bodily, more rhythmic, and closer to the church shout that helped feed jump blues, R&B, rock and roll, and soul.
History
The idiom entered records in the 1920s with Arizona Dranes, whose driving piano and vocal attack pointed toward later gospel, boogie, and R&B. Sister Rosetta Tharpe electrified the sanctified blues impulse in the 1930s and 1940s, while Rev. Utah Smith, The Spirit of Memphis Quartet, The Soul Stirrers, and The Five Blind Boys of Alabama extended the ecstatic church-blues vocabulary through quartets, electric guitar, and full-band gospel. Sanctified Blues became one of the core engines behind soul music's vocal release and rock's gospel-shout intensity.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Lamb's Blood Has Washed Me Clean — Arizona DranesSpotifyYouTube
- Strange Things Happening Every Day — Sister Rosetta TharpeSpotifyYouTube
- Two Wings — Rev. Utah SmithSpotifyYouTube
- Lost in Sin — The Spirit of Memphis QuartetSpotifyYouTube
- Jesus Gave Me Water — The Soul StirrersSpotifyYouTube
- I'm a Soldier — The Five Blind Boys of AlabamaSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound
- Robert Darden, People Get Ready!
- Horace Clarence Boyer, How Sweet the Sound
- AllMusic