Sanctified Gospel
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Sanctified gospel is the raw, rhythmic worship music of the Holiness-Pentecostal "sanctified" churches, driven by tambourine, hand-claps, drums, piano and, distinctively, amplified guitar. It is faster, louder and more percussive than mainline church music, encouraging the holy dance and shout, with fervent shouted-and-sung leads riding a hard backbeat. The mood is ecstatic, physical and celebratory, blurring the line between sacred praise and the beat of the juke joint. Signature techniques include the driving tambourine-and-clap groove, the electric-guitar sacred lead and the repeated, trance-building shout.
History
Sanctified gospel arose in the early-20th-century Church of God in Christ and other Holiness-Pentecostal bodies, which embraced instruments and rhythmic worship that stricter denominations shunned. Pioneers include the blind COGIC pianist Arizona Dranes, who recorded barrelhouse-styled sacred sides in the 1920s, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose electric-guitar gospel — "Strange Things Happening Every Day" (1944), "Up Above My Head" (1948) — prefigured rock and roll. Preacher-performers like Rev. Utah Smith and later Rev. Charlie Jackson, and the COGIC-rooted Rance Allen Group and Clark Sisters, carried the tradition forward. Its rhythmic drive and guitar profoundly shaped soul, R&B and rock and remains audible in the modern praise break.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Strange Things Happening Every Day(1944) — Sister Rosetta TharpeSpotifyYouTube
- This Train(1939) — Sister Rosetta TharpeSpotifyYouTube
- Up Above My Head(1948) — Sister Rosetta TharpeSpotifyYouTube
- Two Wings — Rev. Utah SmithSpotifyYouTube
- God's Got It — Rev. Charlie JacksonSpotifyYouTube
- Ain't No Need of Crying — Rance Allen GroupSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Jerma A. Jackson, Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age (2004)
- Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (1997)
- Robert Darden, People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music (2004)