Spotlights the careers of the gospel singers who have made a distinctive contribution to the world of music

The first true gospel music encyclopedia, Uncloudy Days explores the artists who profoundly influenced early rock 'n' roll and soul music and provided inspiration for millions of the faithful."--BOOK JACKET.

The Sound of Light is a sweeping overview of the history of gospel music. Powerful and incisive, it traces contemporary Christianity and Christian music to the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation after examining music in the Bible and early church music. From the psalms of the early Puritans through the hymns of human composure of Isaac Watts and the social activism of the Wesleys, gospel music was established in 18th century America. With the camp meeting songs of the Kentucky Revival, the spirituals that came from the slave culture, and the hymns from the great revival after the Civil War, gospel music advanced through the 19th century. The 20th century brought recording technology and electronic media to the table. Gospel music has developed with Christian revivals and the history of American gospel music is the history of Christianity in America. Gospel music reflects the American spirit of freedom and the free market as a Christian culture emerges in the 20th century, providing a spiritual as well as economic foundation. The Sound of Light presents gospel music as part of the history of contemporary Christianity. It is a work broad in scope that defines a music essential to understanding American culture as well as American music in the 20th century. Don Cusic is the author of ten books, including the biography Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You in My Heart and an encyclopedia of cowboys, Cowboys and the Wild West: An A-Z Guide from the Chisholm Trail to the Silver Screen. He joined the faculty at Middle Tennessee State University in 1982, teaching courses in the music business. He earned a Masters and Doctorate in Literature from MTSU. Since August of 1994, Cusic has been Professor of Music Business at Belmont University.

From Africa through the spirituals, from minstrel music through jubilee, and from traditional to contemporary gospel, "People Get Ready!" provides, for the first time, an accessible overview of this musical genre.

Gospel music evolved in often surprising directions during the post-Civil Rights era. Claudrena N. Harold's in-depth look at late-century gospel focuses on musicians like Yolanda Adams, Andraé Crouch, the Clark Sisters, Al Green, Take 6, and the Winans, and on the network of black record shops, churches, and businesses that nurtured the music. Harold details the creative shifts, sonic innovations, theological tensions, and political assertions that transformed the music, and revisits the debates within the community over groundbreaking recordings and gospel's incorporation of rhythm and blues, funk, hip-hop, and other popular forms. At the same time, she details how sociopolitical and cultural developments like the Black Power Movement and the emergence of the Christian Right shaped both the art and attitudes of African American performers. Weaving insightful analysis into a collective biography of gospel icons, When Sunday Comes explores the music's essential place as an outlet for African Americans to express their spiritual and cultural selves.

In this ambitious book on southern gospel music, Douglas Harrison reexamines the music's historical emergence and its function as a modern cultural phenomenon. Rather than a single rhetoric focusing on the afterlife as compensation for worldly sacrifice, Harrison presents southern gospel as a network of interconnected messages that evangelical Christians use to make individual sense of both Protestant theological doctrines and their own lived experiences. Harrison explores how listeners and consumers of southern gospel integrate its lyrics and music into their own religious experience, building up individual--and potentially subversive--meanings beneath a surface of evangelical consensus. Reassessing the contributions of such figures as Aldine Kieffer, James D. Vaughan, and Bill and Gloria Gaither, Then Sings My Soul traces an alternative history of southern gospel in the twentieth century, one that emphasizes the music's interaction with broader shifts in American life beyond the narrow confines of southern gospel's borders. His discussion includes the "gay-gospel paradox"--the experience of non-heterosexuals in gospel music--as a cipher for fundamentalism's conflict with the postmodern world.

The outrageous and often hilarious autobiography of legendary session musician and lead guitarist and singer of Toto. "...one of the most entertaining rock memoirs of recent years..." - Houston Press No one explodes one of the longest-held misconceptions of music history better than Steve Lukather and his band Toto. The dominant sound of the late ‘70s and ‘80s was not punk, but a slick, polished amalgam of rock and R&B first staked out on Boz Scaggs’ Silk Degrees. That album was shaped in large part by the founding members of Toto, who were emerging as the most in-demand elite session crew in LA, and further developed on the band’s self-titled multi-platinum debut. A string of massive hits followed for Toto while Lukather and bandmates David Paich, Jeff Porcaro, and Steve Porcaro also served as creative linchpins on some of the most successful and influential records of the era, including Michael Jackson’s Thriller. In this incisive memoir, Lukather tells the complete Toto story. He also lifts the lid on what went on behind the closed studio doors, shedding light on the unique creative processes of some of the most legendary names in music: from Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, and Elton John to Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Roger Waters, and Aretha Franklin. Lukather’s extraordinary tale also encompasses the dark side of stardom and the American Dream. Frank, engaging, and often hilarious, The Gospel According to Luke is no ordinary rock memoir. It is the real thing.

(Piano). This cutting-edge keyboard method is a total step-by-step approach to creating keyboard parts spontaneously. Rhythmic and harmonic concepts are applied in all keys, and are then used as a basis for developing specific solutions in rock, pop, ballad, funk, new age, country and gospel styles. Endorsed by Grammy winners, top educators, and Keyboard magazine.

From basic industry concepts to the ministry skills so necessary in Gospel music, industry veteran Monica Coates discusses it all honestly and with an eye toward practical application.