Thomas A. Dorsey
Thomas Andrew Dorsey (July 1, 1899 – January 23, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and Christian evangelist influential in the development of early blues and 20th-century gospel music. He penned 3,000 songs, a third of them gospel, including " Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and " Peace in the Valley". Recordings of these sold millions of copies in both gospel and secular markets in the 20th century."Thomas Dorsey, Father of Gospel Music, Dies at 93", ''The Washington Post'', (January 25, 1993), p. D6. Born in rural Georgia, Dorsey grew up in a religious family but gained most of his musical experience playing blues piano at barrelhouses and parties in Atlanta. He moved to Chicago and became a proficient composer and arranger of jazz and vaudeville just as blues was becoming popular. He gained fame accompanying blues belter Ma Rainey on tour and, billed as "Georgia Tom", joined with guitarist Tampa Red in a successful recording career. After a spiritual awakening, Dors ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Villa Rica, Georgia
Villa Rica (Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese translation: Rich Village) is a city in Carroll and Douglas counties in the U.S. state of Georgia. Villa Rica is placed in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Additionally, there are unincorporated areas in Paulding County with Villa Rica postal addresses. History The location which was to become Villa Rica was originally settled in 1826 along what is now Dallas Highway. This land was ceded by the Creek people in 1825 with the second Treaty of Indian Springs signed by Chief William McIntosh. In 1826, farmers and gold miners arrived in the area from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware to what was then known as "Hixtown" (named after a local tavern operator, incorporated in 1830). One mile south was Chevestown, owned by Allison Cheeves. Hixtown and Cheevestown moved to Villa Rica's present location in 1882 when the railroad was built. Many of the original structures were physically moved to the new site (now known as the North Villa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs and dances. Vaudeville became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and films. A vaudeville performer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divine grace, the priesthood of all believers, and the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. The five solae, five ''solae'' summarize the basic theological beliefs of mainstream Protestantism. Protestants follow the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began in the 16th century with the goal of reforming the Catholic Church from perceived Criticism of the Catholic Church, errors, abuses, and discrepancies. The Reformation began in the Holy Roman Empire in 1517, when Martin Luther published his ''Ninety-five Theses'' as a reaction against abuses in the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church, which purported to offer the remission of the Purgatory, temporal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Negro Spiritual
Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged varied African cultural influences with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs", work songs, and plantation songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs in church. In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s, the emancipation altering mainly the nature (but not continuation) of slavery for many. Many new derivative music genres such as the blues emerged from the spirituals songcraft. Prior to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Country Blues
Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in the early 20th century. It stands in contrast primarily to the urban blues style, especially in the pre-war era. History Artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson (Texas), Charley Patton (Mississippi), Blind Willie McTell (Georgia) were among the first to record blues songs in the 1920s. Country blues ran parallel to urban blues, which was popular in cities. Historian Elijah Wald notes many similarities between blues, bluegrass, and country & western styles with roots in the American south. Record labels in the 1920s and 1930s carefully segregated musicians and defined styles for racially targeted audiences. Over time, the rural black and rural white music evolved into different styles, with artists such as Bobby Bland, Ray Charles, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
One-room School
One-room schoolhouses, or One-room schools, have been commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. In most rural and small town schools, all of the students meet in a single room. There, a single teacher teaches academic basics to several grade levels of primary education, elementary-age children. Recent years have seen a revival of the format. One-room schoolhouses can also be found in developing nations and rural or remote areas undergoing colonization. In the United States, the concept of a "little red schoolhouse" is a stirring one, and historic one-room schoolhouses have widely been preserved and are celebrated as symbols of frontier values and of local and national development. When necessary, the schools were enlarged or replaced with two-room schools. More than 200 are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Morehouse College
Morehouse College is a Private college, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black, Men's colleges in the United States, men's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Anchored by its main campus of near downtown Atlanta, the college has a variety of residential dorms and academic buildings east of Ashview Heights. Along with Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and the Morehouse School of Medicine, the college is a member of the Atlanta University Center consortium. Founded by William J. White (journalist), William Jefferson White in 1867 in response to Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution#Adoption, the liberation of enslaved African Americans following the American Civil War, Morehouse stressed preparatory and religious instruction in the Baptist tradition for students who had been prevented from receiving education by former slave laws. Growth in the late 19th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a higher economic and social status. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have used a form of the system. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law. The France, French ''métayage'', the Catalonia, Catalan ''masoveria'', the Castile (historical region), Castilian ''mediero'', the Slavs, Slavic ''połownictwo'' and ''izdolshchina, the Italy, Italian mezzadria'', and the Islamic economics, Islamic system of ''muzara‘a'' (المزارعة), are examples of legal systems that have supported sharecropping. Overview Under a sharecropping system, landowners provided a share of land to be worked by the sharecropper, and usually provided other necessities such as h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Black Church
The Black church (sometimes termed Black Christianity or African American Christianity) is the faith and body of Christian denominations and congregations in the United States that predominantly minister to, and are led by, African Americans, as well as these churches' collective traditions and members. Black churches primarily arose in the 19th century, during a time when race-based slavery and racial segregation were both commonly practiced in the United States. Black people generally searched for an area where they could independently express their faith, find leadership, and escape from inferior treatment in white dominated churches. Throughout many African American houses, churches reflect a deep cultural emphasis on community and shared spiritual experience. For African Americans, the church is a dynamic, living body of believers whose collective faith and fellowship are central, regardless of the physical space. This difference highlights the unique cultural and histor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Anthony Heilbut
Anthony Heilbut (born November 22, 1940) is an American writer, and a Grammy Award winning record producer of gospel music. He is noted for his biography of Thomas Mann, and is also a two-time recipient of the Grand Prix du Disque. Life Anthony Heilbut, the son of German Jewish refugees Bertha and Otto Heilbut, was born in New York. He received his Ph.D. in English from Harvard University when he was 25. For the next ten years he taught, first at New York University and then at Hunter College. Since 1976 he has been a full-time writer and record producer. Heilbut’s first book, ''The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times'', was published in 1971 and has been updated several times since then; a “25th Anniversary Edition” appeared in 1997. James Baldwin said, It’s a very beautiful book, with love and precision, no pity — a little like a gospel song ... I didn’t know that anybody knew that much about it, or cared that much, or could be so tough and lucid. CounterPunch ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
James Cleveland
James Edward Cleveland (December 5, 1931 – February 9, 1991) was an American gospel singer, musician, and composer. Known as the "King of Gospel," Cleveland was a driving force behind the creation of the modern gospel sound by incorporating traditional black gospel, soul, pop, and jazz in arrangements for mass choirs. Throughout his career, Cleveland appeared on hundreds of recordings and earned four Grammy Awards. He was the first gospel musician to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1984. For his trailblazing accomplishments, he is regarded by many as one of the greatest gospel singers who ever lived. His best known recordings include "Lord, Help Me to Hold Out", "Peace Be Still", "I Don't Feel No Ways Tired", “Where Is Your Faith", "The Love of God", "God Has Smiled on Me", and "Jesus Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me." Early life and career Born in Chicago, Cleveland began singing as a boy sopran ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Roberta Martin
Roberta Evelyn Martin (February 12, 1907 – January 18, 1969) was an American gospel composer, singer, pianist, arranger and choral organizer, helped launch the careers of many other gospel artists through her group, The Roberta Martin Singers. Early years Born in Helena, Arkansas, on February 12, 1907, Martin moved to Chicago with her family in 1917, where she studied piano. Although a high school teacher inspired her to dream of becoming a concert pianist, her future course was changed after accompanying the Young People's Choir at Ebenezer Baptist Church. She came into contact with Thomas A. Dorsey, known as the Father of Gospel Music, through her work as the pianist for the youth choir. With Dorsey's help, she and Theodore Frye organized the Martin-Frye Quartet, a youth group consisting of Eugene Smith, Norsalus McKissick, Robert Anderson, James Lawrence, Willie Webb and Romance Watson, in 1933. Martin renamed the group the Roberta Martin Singers in 1936 and added Bessie Fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |