The relation of gospel and early bluegrass?

[SincereCorgi]

I like what might be called 'early country' or 'hillbilly' music, i.e. Roy Acuff and Charlie Poole and Monroe Bros, etc., and I have always wondered about how their repertoire seemed to be so heavy in gospel music.

Were these were performed in churches or on Sunday gospel broadcasts, or were they just a standard part of a music program in the American south at that time, or are these overrepresented in the repertoire because religious records sold well at the time?

This question may be beyond the scope of the forum, since it's sort of at the nexus of music history and social history.

(P.s. I am not a religious person myself, but I like the music very much, and I don't intend this post to start any great debates about religion.)

[MysTiK PiKn]

Well, the story I always heard was that BlueGrass appeared and evolved as a combination of Gospel and Bluegrass. Many of the early traditional Bluegrass songs are leaning to the Gospel side. And many aren't. And the origin was Kentucky. I don't really know much about the history. I do know that some groups, bands, clubs, etc. do insist on some of the musical content be gospel; and they insist that it's not really Bluegrass if that Gospel component is missing. That's the purest view, I suppose.

There's another sub-category called NewGrass - I don't really know what that represents. It might be "new" Bluegrass songs - as if any break w tradition is somehow taboo. I also know of a fairly recent band that is described by some as "outlaw" Bluegrass because they specifically do not play Gospel. That could be marketing hype; and kinda dark at that, considering that Grass is generally "nice" music. Altho "Lil Maggie" wasn't really treated too well on the Ralph Stanley track I heard.

I just like the sound of Bluegrass, fast or slow. I used to refer to it as "beautiful down home country corn" cos it was more corny than it was cool. I think the scene is evolving with the Newgrass idea. But Newgrass can wander right into Country territory.

I think the "blues" side is most evident in the high speed flat picking, where it seems, like blues, special scales are used. But there's also the "High Lonesome" sound, which is definitely blues related too.

And then there's the talk of "Olde Tyme" country. To me, that's the stuff you are calling early country, or hillbilly music.Roy Acuff, Jimmy Martin, Carter Family. Fiddle, autoharp, etc.

The album "Will the circle be unbroken" crossed a lot of lines also.

And also there's "Mountain Music". A lot of bluegrass songs are about mountains. I'm not sure if there really is a genre called Mountain; it again exists in my world, at least as an idea. I think it includes some bluegrass, likely some gospel, and also dulcimer music. I don't know if grouping things together would be beneficial. Labels are restrictive really; so the overlap is likely a good thing.

It's all Folk Music anyway. Everything traces back to Folk Music. That's what makes folk fests so great.

I'm typing a lot for a guy who claims to not know a lot about it. Anyway, that's all I got.

[Caleb]

I'm pretty sure in rural areas, church music was about the only music a lot of folks ever heard. Early Country music (pre-Bluegrass) was born out of that culture where everyone, for the most part, shared a common belief. Throwing hymns and traditional songs in the mix for early Country artists would have been a mixture of respect and tradition. And probably a lot of those artist grew up singing those songs and truly loved it. We all tend to have fond memories of the music of our childhood.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Apart from the Folk songs etc.that were taken to the US by the early settlers,of course they took with them their religious beliefs & the music / hymns that went with them. The country churches at that time were a focal point for many communities despite the fact that most of them only saw a travelling preacher when he happened to stop by on his rounds of the communities in his area.
Unless there happened to be a musican or 2 in a community,the church was the principal source of music of any sort & it became a very important part of daily life. Bill Monroe himself mentions in the film - Bill Monroe - Father of Bluegrass,that his family went to church,but he didn't on account of his poor eyesight - he couldn't read the lines of music,which i presume were a form of written notation called 'shape note' music - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_note
As the church music was so imortant,it's no surprise then that musicians arising from these communities offered a few songs from the church repertoir ('Gospel' if you wish), as they'd mostly be well know to their listeners.
Bluegrass music has always had a lot of Gospel content for much the same reason. The church & religion were a central part of country folk's life & any musician performing such music would gain immediate acceptance. The Monroe Brother's first major 'hit' (so i believe) was the song ''What Would You Give In Exchange For Your Soul'',& that song is still popular amongst Bluegrass musicians today,
Ivan

[Nashville]

I'm pretty sure in rural areas, church music was about the only music a lot of folks ever heard. Early Country music (pre-Bluegrass) was born out of that culture where everyone, for the most part, shared a common belief. Throwing hymns and traditional songs in the mix for early Country artists would have been a mixture of respect and tradition. And probably a lot of those artist grew up singing those songs and truly loved it. We all tend to have fond memories of the music of our childhood.

I think this pretty much hit the nail on the head. Church was the center of life for most all rural folk in those days and still is now to a great extent in the southern states. All these musicians grew up singing hymns and gospel in church. It's in their blood.

Then they added some pickin' to it.

[GTison]

I believe Neil Rosenberg addressed this in the book "Bluegrass, A History". It would be a good book to read addressing a lot of subjects in bluegrass music including this. Gospel music was and is part of bluegrass music. The above post by Caleb is true enough.

[JeffD]

I think Caleb nails it.

In times past a greater percentage of the population was involved in religion as a regular part of life, as normal and comfortable as shoes. There are still places and people for which this is true, but modernity has brought lots of cultural changes.

[Beanzy]

It's where the multi-part harmony singing came from and a lot of bands used songs that they knew were popular from the church singing. There's a good section this in the Carter Family biography "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? "

[allenhopkins]

Many rural folks learned music in church or in their families. Bluegrass bands of the "old school" usually included a "sacred song" or two in each performance. Bands like Monroe's toured small towns in the South, and performances were often held in local school auditoriums or in churches -- the only venues, in many of these towns, where an audience could be assembled, although Monroe toured as a "tent show" for years, setting up a performance tent if the weather allowed.

Monroe, and Flatt & Scruggs as well, made a distinction in performance between their secular bluegrass material and their gospel/sacred repertoire. Monroe would say, "Now the Blue Grass Quartet will sing a hymn," and banjo and fiddle would drop out, and Monroe, his lead singer, and two other Blue Grass Boys would perform with just guitar, mandolin and bass. In the Foggy Mountain Boys, Scruggs would often switch to finger-style guitar for sacred numbers. And after Ralph Stanley released the Cry From the Cross LP, his shows would often include a gospel number sung a cappella, an example that Doyle Lawson also has followed.

There's been some writing about the reaction among Northern college audiences, during the '60's "folk revival," to bluegrass acts that included sacred material in performances, but of course this type of "culture shock" also extended to the "Mother and Dad are dead" style songs that younger listeners found over-sentimental to the point of being maudlin. And some of the younger "city-billy" bands began including gospel parodies in their performances. I can remember Bottle Hill singing The Old Neon Cross to general snickers, a tradition that may be carried on by Steve Martin's rendition of Atheists Don't Have No Songs.

Some of the strongest bluegrass material is in the sacred genre; I'd hold up Monroe's A Voice From On High as one of his top albums. Bluegrass didn't really start in clubs and honky-tonks, or even college coffeehouses, though it's surely become welcome there. The "church music" tradition of bluegrass -- and blues -- keeps showing up, even in contemporary secularized performance.

[M.Marmot]

I think that most of the folks who have contributed above have laid a steady reading - the influence of religion would have been strong bond for many communities and the language and imagery of the bible would have been formative for later lyrical expression - but one factor i would like to draw attention to is that the religious community was often a good repository for traditional melodies and improvisation.

Most communities would have a repertoire of traditional, familiar, melodies to draw on and would rarely stray from these, recycling them as needed. The fashion was that the lyrics would often be imported at a later date and then set to a suitable pre-existing melody. It was not unheard of for the same song to have completely different melodies from community to community ... for instance, Amazing Grace was set to numerous melodies before it found a definite setting.

For me, this spirit of continuation or melodic renewal and adaption is one of the more powerful drives that informs Bluegrass ... though, i don't know if that's in one of those 'definitive' books referenced above. So, i could be wrong.

[DataNick]

Most "traditional" Bluegrass festivals have a Sun morning "Gospel" service in which the performers perform or lead the audience in "Sacred" songs...

[mandroid]

Still a lot of people posting here seem to play for Church services
if anywhere..

My churches had piano accompaniment leading hymn songs..

[David L]

Mixing and matching melodies and words was a very usual thing in Protestant churches in the 1800's. Many tunes had a Christmas set of words, an Easter set, etc. Hymn books had a Metrical Index that was used for this. Right below the title of the hymn was a set of numbers ( Amazing Grace- 8,6,8,6 ). The numbers are the number of syllables in each phrase. In the back of the hymnbook was a metrical index which listed all the songs by their number pattern. The words of any 8,6,8,6 would fit any other 8,6,8,6.

This is still done today, but to a lesser degree. Try singing the words to "Pinball Wizard" to the tune of "Folsum Prison Blues". It works perfectly.

[Willie Poole]

When LP`s first came out in the hillbilly music days every recordings had a gospel song on it and like Allen stated all shows included a gospel song....Most of the sets that my band does end with a gospel song...That is something that I haven`t seen on The Grand Ole Opry for some time or even on recordings.....I do know that places where my band plays we have been asked quite a few times if we have a "gospel" CD for sale so this spring we will be in the studio cutting one...

[JH Murray]

There also wasn't such a divide between sacred and secular songs back then. Good singing was good singing. The foundations of harmony singing comes from the church, and bluegrass is a form that stresses those harmonies.

[SincereCorgi]

I'm pretty sure in rural areas, church music was about the only music a lot of folks ever heard. Early Country music (pre-Bluegrass) was born out of that culture where everyone, for the most part, shared a common belief. Throwing hymns and traditional songs in the mix for early Country artists would have been a mixture of respect and tradition. And probably a lot of those artist grew up singing those songs and truly loved it. We all tend to have fond memories of the music of our childhood.

Well, sure, this is a stereotype firmly rooted in truth, but I think it's interesting that the same artists putting out recordings of religious songs had no qualms about putting out songs about murder-suicide, gleeful vagrancy, and honky tonks. I imagine the latter wouldn't have gone over very well in certain venues, and I wonder whether there was one of set of material for the revival show and one set for the mining camp.

(All this was precipitated by playing in a jam with a lady who knew all of Scrugg's licks inside out, but didn't want to learn any 'churchy songs'. What got me is that 'churchy songs' are about half of their discography.)

[allenhopkins]

By the way, some of the strongest devotees of Southern gospel singing I've known, have been Jewish. They just liked the music.

[StuartE]

Surprised that no one mentioned this in talking about the bluegrass-gospel connection. All to the same melody.

1924 "Prisoner's Song" recorded in 1924 by Vernon Dalhart

1928 "Thrills That I Can't Forget," recorded by Welby Toomey and Edgar Boaz

1929 "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes" Carter Family


1936 Roy Acuff "Great Speckled Bird"

Earlier that year Acuff heard the GSB sung by a gospel group called the Black Shirts. He paid the leader 50 cents. Acuff performs in on the radio and it leads to his first record contract.

Sometime after 1936, GSB is published in hymnals used by fundamentalist churches.

1952 Hank Thompson "The Wild Side of Life"

1952 Kitty Wells "It Wasn't God who Made Honky Tonk Angels."

Dalhart apparently learned the song from a cousin whose brother learned it in prison. "Prisoners song" was a mega-hit in its day. Selling over 2 million, and perhaps as many as 7 million copies.

So prison song to secular country to gospel to honky tonk.

[Caleb]

Quote: SincereCorgi: Well, sure, this is a stereotype firmly rooted in truth, but I think it's interesting that the same artists putting out recordings of religious songs had no qualms about putting out songs about murder-suicide, gleeful vagrancy, and honky tonks.

The latter are songs about Saturday night; the former about Sunday morning. Both a very real part of everyday life then too.

[Loudloar]

Whether it's Southern Music or Southern culture in general, Christian faith was an important part of the fabric of society.

A 1950's Bill Monroe poster. Says "Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys" and "Blue Grass Quartet" which is not a separate group but the same guys doing a Gospel segment during every show. That's what the audience expected.

And it's not just Bluegrass. Watch the rerun of any 1960's Country Music TV show, such as The Porter Wagoner Show. Every show included a "Sacred number". For a lot of their Southern audience it was their favorite part of the show. It's also interesting that the performers are careful to not even smile while doing a Gospel song for fear their audience might think they are not being respectful of the message.

Steve

[M.Marmot]

Quote: SincereCorgi: Well, sure, this is a stereotype firmly rooted in truth, but I think it's interesting that the same artists putting out recordings of religious songs had no qualms about putting out songs about murder-suicide, gleeful vagrancy, and honky tonks.

The latter are songs about Saturday night; the former about Sunday morning. Both a very real part of everyday life then too.

I think we have to bare in mind the nature of an agricultural community - news and story telling were often incorporated into songs, a lot of the work was seasonal, and therefore migrational .. and, well, even Noah had an episode with the vine.

The nature of a lot of murder and drinking ballads might, at first, seem at odds with a gospel spirit, but, often the people in these situations are to be damned for their actions - they are morality tales; and the gallows, or the devil, is waiting for those who backslide.

[FLATROCK HILL]

The nature of a lot of murder and drinking ballads might, at first, seem at odds with a gospel spirit, but, often the people in these situations are to be damned for their actions - they are morality tales; and the gallows, or the devil, is waiting for those who backslide.

Great point. I'm sure there are exceptions, but for the most part these old "murder and drinking ballads" do not glorify those acts.
When TV Evangelist Pat Robertson was criticized for saying he liked Johnny Cash's music, he responded by explaining that (I'm paraphrasing) the guy who shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, spent the rest of his life in prison sorry for what he'd done.

[foldedpath]

The nature of a lot of murder and drinking ballads might, at first, seem at odds with a gospel spirit, but, often the people in these situations are to be damned for their actions - they are morality tales; and the gallows, or the devil, is waiting for those who backslide.

And if the moral of the story doesn't quite fit current sensibilities, just take a very old English ballad like "Matty Groves" -- about a feudal lord righteously murdering his cheating wife and her lover -- and change the lyrics to "Shady Grove," a conventional song about pining for a sweetheart.

[tkdboyd]

Great point. I'm sure there are exceptions, but for the most part these old "murder and drinking ballads" do not glorify those acts.
When TV Evangelist Pat Robertson was criticized for saying he liked Johnny Cash's music, he responded by explaining that (I'm paraphrasing) the guy who shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, spent the rest of his life in prison sorry for what he'd done.

Not to derail, but saw this clip today. New twist to a murder ballad

Guess it is in the same vein as Welch's Caleb Meyer but Gillian Welch's song is much darker.

[allenhopkins]

...Watch the rerun of any 1960's Country Music TV show, such as The Porter Wagoner Show. Every show included a "Sacred number". For a lot of their Southern audience it was their favorite part of the show. It's also interesting that the performers are careful to not even smile while doing a Gospel song for fear their audience might think they are not being respectful of the message....

Marty Stuart does the same thing on his RFD-TV show.