Houston's gospel music scene: A month of celebration

Houston has, in some ways, been Gospel Music Central. So, it solely is sensible that members of Houston’s gospel music scene communicate on the significance of the style. Credit score: Arnold Turner/Getty Photos.

Gospel music is a power of nature. It not solely dominates Black church gatherings and radio airwaves within the U.S., gospel music’s lyrics and melodies will be heard all over the world.

What’s simply as wonderful is that gospel music, as soon as thought-about “unholy” and “secular” by the gospel lovers of previous generations, is now the norm. Houstonians just like the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, group activist Carl Davis and KTSU Normal Supervisor Ernest Walker had been instrumental in getting September designated as Gospel Music Month.

To that finish, the Defender selected to have fun the style by reaching out to Houston-area members of the gospel music group to assemble their views on its significance to the nation generally and to Black folks specifically.

Nation

For award-winning gospel music artist Brian Courtney Wilson, gospel music impacts which communities’ tales America is keen to listen to.

Brian Courtney Wilson, Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter. Credit score: Briancourtneywilson.com.

“I believe our nation is in the course of contending for the tales: Who will get to inform them, who will get to contextualize them, who will get to learn that means into them,” stated Wilson. “For me, gospel music has at all times been a method to telling that story. It makes use of phrases and it goes past phrases. That’s why it’s essential to me.

“And I believe it’s essential to the nation that area is made for it to be heard, if we’re critical about all of the tales.”

William Keith Eason, the minister of music on the Fort Bend Church, uttered comparable sentiments.

“Gospel actually means the excellent news. And proper now, we’d like a number of excellent news with the dangerous occasions we’re form of in,” stated Eason, one of many winners of the inaugural Defender Ministers of Music Extraordinaire Awards in 2018. “There’s nothing higher than a gospel track or gospel music to assist us pull us via what we’re coping with; the inflation, the deaths, the assassinations and all of the issues that’s occurring.”

Gospel legend V. Michael McKay supplied a sermonic response to the query of what gospel music’s significance is to the U.S.

“To begin with, gospel music is common. It’s simply the excellent news of Jesus Christ,” stated McKay, a Gospel Music Corridor of Famer. “We sing the phrase similar to we communicate the phrase, we preach the phrase, we dwell the phrase. So, it’s the phrase of God. It’s the excellent news of Jesus Christ in songs.”

Melanie Bivens, Fountain of Reward Worship Arts Ministry. Credit score: Fountain of Reward.

Melanie Bivens, a strong a part of the music ministry on the Fountain of Reward, preached a phrase, as effectively, about gospel music’s nationwide influence.

“For this nation, we provide gospel music to God’s folks, for the believers and the non-believers, that they will see the excellent news, they will hear the message that’s displayed in gospel music, a message of hope, a message of safety, a message of enlightenment for all of the believers,” said Bivens. “Those that are listening to the music could have a nasty day, they usually need to hear one thing that’s performed on the radio; Richard Smallwood’s Whole Reward or if I really feel like I’m on their own on my own, By no means Alone by Walter Hawkins.

“So, what it means for the nation is simply excellent news. It’s a message of hope. It’s a message of deliverance. It’s a message of assurance. It’s a message to tell us that we aren’t on this world by ourselves. And there’s excellent news even out of a nasty scenario.”

Black folks

Ernest Walker, KTSU common supervisor. Courtesy Ernest Walker.

Native gospel greats emphasised the style’s historical past when reflecting on gospel music’s significance to Black folks.

“While you consider the Black church, to me, that’s form of a part of the place gospel music was birthed. However for those who return to slavery time, it was actually again with the Negro spirituals,” stated Walker. “However if you consider gospel music at this time and the way essential it’s within the Black church, I believe it’s very related. It’s a music that has helped us get via challenges in our lives, from what we had been coping with within the Sixties to what we’re coping with at this time in 2025.”

Bivens, too, recalled Black folks’s expertise with enslavement when looking for phrases to specific gospel music’s influence on Black folks.

Thomas A. Dorsey is called the ‘Father of Gospel Music.’ Credit score: Wikipedia.

“Gospel music, for Black folks particularly, goes again to slavery,” stated Bivens. “It goes again to the spirituals, how our ancestors would sing songs like Swing Low, Candy Chariot, “coming forth to hold me residence.” Wade within the Water. It spoke of freedom and ‘We’re getting out of right here. We’re going to get out of this factor alive. We aren’t going to remain right here endlessly.’ From the spirituals to the blues to jazz, and now to gospel music, it provides us hope and assurance.”

Wilson dialed up the particular person often called the “Father of gospel music.”

“Thomas Dorsey was a blues musician who handled some tragedy, and it took him to church,” shared Wilson. “He was capable of combine what he was doing within the blues with what he was compelled to do within the church as he healed. And it was for an viewers that was refused entry into white areas, white neighborhoods, white entry to company. He was capable of fuse the blues, the sacred and all of these tales and what folks had been contending with, to provide us this legacy of gospel music.

“And never solely that, monetize it so we might proceed to do it.”

The late Sylvester Turner, V. Michael McKay, Yolanda Adams and the late Sheila Jackson Lee participated within the Defender’s inaugural Minister of Music Extraordinaire Awards in 2018. Credit score: Aswad Walker.

McKay described gospel music as a historic mirror.

“You can inform one thing about an individual’s historical past by listening to their music. And that is one kind of music that you would hearken to and you would inform who we’re, the place we’re in life,” shared McKay. “Beginning with spirituals, you would see and listen to the oppression. Even in good gospel music at this time, you continue to hear and really feel the guts of the particular person singing. It’s concerning the telling of the story. It’s a narrative being instructed, and also you simply occur to place it within the phrases of a track.”