David Bruce Murray
Jun 14, 2008
Observations|Singing News
What Sets Southern Gospel Apart
This week’s poll question at Singing News is thought provoking. “What do you feel most separates Southern Gospel from other types of Christian music?” The possible answers in the poll are Audience, Lyrics, Music, and Singers.
My instinct was to choose Lyrics. I briefly considered whether Music or Singers would be a better choice, but ultimately settled on Audience. It would have been a difficult question to answer if Audience had not been an option. From all the observations I’ve made of Southern Gospel audiences over the years, Audience is clearly the best choice.
For every musical element you might mention in Southern Gospel, there’s an argument of “yes, but so-and-so artist who isn’t considered Southern Gospel did the same thing.” Pick one out of a hat…Southern Gospel often features a bass guitar alternating the root of the current chord on beat 1 and the fifth of the chord on beat three. See Elefante, John – Defying Gravity: “Pass The Flame.” Pick another…Southern Gospel albums often pay tribute to hymns and popular gospel songs from the shape note era. See Millard, Bart – Hymned or Taff, Russ – Under Their Influence. You may be able to come up with better examples than these.
When you attend a typical Southern Gospel concert, there is a noticeable difference in the audience. When fans of Southern Gospel encounter fans of other forms of Christian music on an internet message board, there is often a different attitude about why they enjoy their respective styles. Sure, most Christian music fans share the basics of a desire to have music entertain us and lead us to a sense of worship…some exclusively and some a combination of the two. With Southern Gospel, you generally have an older white audience that expects at least a mediocre attempt at stand up comedy at some point in the program, a decent appearance on stage, and a combination of upbeat and slower songs that spell out the Gospel message in a way that anyone can understand. While I do think there are audiences of other forms of Christian music that expect some of these same elements, I’m not so sure there’s another audience of a similar makeup that expects a similar combination.
