This past summer, PBS and WETA announced the premier of Gospel, a four-hour docu-series that explores the history of Black spirituality through sermon and song from Harvard scholar and documentarian Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on Feb. 12 to 13, 2024. The series will premiere on Feb. 12 and 13, 2024, with a special companion concert premiering on Feb. 9.
The PBS concert special will feature the biggest names in gospel music and the biggest stars from pop music R&B, and beyond. The concert will be recorded in Los Angeles in front of a live audience, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Gospel music is a form of African American sacred music that began to take form in the early 20th century. Although gospel is a form of Black sacred music, all Black sacred music is not gospel. Other examples of Black sacred music forms that play a role in the eventual development of gospel are hymns and anthems, lined hymns, and chorale singing.
The precursors to gospel music are the spirituals which represented the merging of Christian beliefs with the needs of the enslaved and the music traditions of Africa. After slavery was finally abolished, the pioneering Fisk Jubilee singers carried the message of the Spirituals to all four corners of the earth. Initially created as an extracurricular activity for students at Fisk University, a Nashville school for former slaves that opened in 1866, a group of 14 male and female students set out on tour in 1871 to raise money for the financially struggling institution.
Taking the words and heartfelt emotion of the spirituals and setting them to arrangements more fitting to the classical stage than the slave cabin, the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ initial seven years of touring netted the group rave reviews in Europe and America and raised over $150,000 to save the school. As time went on, the group sharpened its act and reduced its size to a traveling group of four men.
Beginning in the early 1900s, churches, colleges, social clubs and even factories created their own “Jubilee Quartets.” Specializing in tight harmonies and a cappella performance styles, Jubilee singing became one of the first and most lasting trends in African American sacred music.
The new docu-series will likely not pay much attention to Los Angeles as an important center of gospel music, but PBS SoCal has provided content on this very subject matter.
In San Pedro, the spirituals became a kind of currency in cultural exchange when the San Pedro YMCA and San Pedro High School would invite local Jubilee singers to perform, starting around 1920. A decade later, Olivia and Arthur Eskridge, Black San Pedro residents, formed the San Pedro Community Chorus featuring more than 50 vocalists, pulling singers from Mount Sinai Baptist Church and Black congregations in Long Beach. The chorus competed with other choruses throughout the city, winning first place and the right to perform at the Hollywood Bowl under the direction of Elmer C. Bartlett, a highly acclaimed choir director and organist who received several awards in the course of his career including first prize for directing the Los Angeles African Methodist Church, or AME’s choir at a 1926 choir competition at the Hollywood Bowl. By 1940, he had moved to Elgin, Illinois. He continued to direct choirs and play the organ for various AME churches.
Olivia Eskridge, who migrated to San Pedro in 1923 with her husband, Arthur, from Chattanooga, Tennessee used the opportunity to create space for Black excellence from San Pedro and beyond, using the San Pedro Community Choir as a kind of ambassador to the community. The choir regularly performed throughout the community, including the church halls of San Pedro Methodist Church, the San Pedro High School, Leland Elementary School and the YMCA.
In Gospel, Gates interviews dozens of clergymen, singers, and scholars about their connection to the music that has transcended its origins and now spreads “the good news” throughout the world. Among the interviewees are singer/actress Dionne Warwick, U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, Rev. Otis Moss III, and professor Michael Eric Dyson. The docuseries also features awe-inspiring musical performances of gospel favorites Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus, Total Praise, and others by The Belle Singers, Cory Henry, Celisse and culture-shaking performers.
This isn’t the first time PBS has featured a series that examined Black spiritual expression. The last time this happened, Gospel series producers and directors produced The Black Church. For centuries, the sacred sounds of Gospel music and Black preaching have testified to God’s goodness and grace while embracing the rhythms and riffs of blues, jazz and hip-hop.
“I’m so grateful to have been able to work again with the incredible team of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Stacey L. Holman, and Shayla Harris,” executive producer Dyllan McGee said in a released statement. “They’ve created yet another impactful and important series that invites audiences to enjoy and celebrate the sounds of Gospel.”
Throughout four hours, Gospel looks at the history of Black religious music and preaching, showcasing the symbiotic relationship of words and songs present in any Black church. The series examines the origin of Black gospel music, which blended the sacred spirituals with the blues tradition and soared to new heights during the Great Migration. This music served as an outlet for the anger and frustration of living as a Black person in America, which remains true today. The series also explores the evolution of preaching styles over time, and the impact of class, gender, cultural innovations, and consumer technologies that shaped the development of gospel since its conception.