One of the most persistent controversies in the long history of gospel music has been is whether its primary purpose is to minister or to entertain audiences. It remains an issue today for many in gospel music. This article will not necessarily answer that question, but its intent is to shed some light on the history of this issue and perhaps assist in the reader making that decision for him or herself.
From the beginnings of the tradition we have come to call southern gospel music in the mid-nineteenth century, the purpose of music in church has been a subject of debate and discussion. The complete study of the origins of professional gospel music is outside the focus of this article, and deserves an article of its own. For the purposes of this article, I will summarize the consensus of all the stories of the beginnings of those traditions.
The rise of the Pentecostal movement and the consequent establishment of singing schools and singing conventions in the mid-nineteenth century were the main impetus for specialty singers of gospel song. The pioneering efforts of men such as Aldon Kieffer, Ephraim Roebush, and A.J. Showalter initially were the agents that began a gospel music industry, with their popularization of the shape-note method of singing and their publishing of song books that popularized those techniques.
Enter James D. Vaughan, a Tennessean who, as a boy, became fascinated with music and the shape-note method of singing. When he turned 18, he began the first of many singing schools bearing his name and products, and in order to help sell his song books and other musical products to people, he established a quartet of men to sing the songs in his books, an demonstrate the virtues of his singing methods. Out of this came the first professional gospel singing groups, since the material in Vaughan's books consisted of religious music of the day.
Quartets began to form in the various places where Vaughan had conducted singing schools, and by 1910, Vaughan happened on the idea to form a travelling professional quartet to help his burgeoning music publishing business grow. The great success of the original Vaughan Quartet and other quartets under his sponsorship convinced anyone paying attention that there was money to be made in performing gospel songs before audiences.
The quartet craze began to sweep the South, and soon other intrepid people began to rise up from the Vaughan organization and establish publishing empires of their own. Probably the most successful Vaughan alumnus was Texan Virgil O. Stamps, known by his initials, V.O., a fine singer himself, and a restless, visionary businessman.
By the 1920s, this method of using travelling quartets to sell religious music to people had caught on so successfully, the competition in the songbook field began to get intense. With the help of his brother Frank, also a fine singer and manager of a prominent quartet, and his business partner, J.R. Baxter, Jr., Stamps' Stamps-Baxter Company became the leading music publishing company in the South.
For quite some time, Stamps-Baxter quartets competed with Vaughan quartets at singing conventions, fairs, and whatever venues they managed to appear at. Because of the desire to outsell the competition, quartets from both organizations worked as hard as they could to entertain the audiences as best as possible, and with Frank Stamps' quartet also getting into the brand new field of records, there was another medium that the various singers and their companies would try to conquer to establish loyal followings.
Although it was certainly true than men like Vaughan, Stamps, Showalter, and Homer Rodehaver were motivated to assist churches and other ministries of the time musically, clearly the focus of their work was on maintaining a business, and doing it as successfully as possible. Arguably their work was their way of contributing to ministry in their individual ways. Nevertheless, the focus remained on the businesses, and whatever made them most successful was utilized.
Along with all this activity, the new medium of radio was beginning to be used to establish new singers…people from all stations in life intent on making a living through the singing of gospel songs. Groups like the Speer Family from Alabama, the Blackwood Brothers from Mississippi, and the LeFevre Trio from Tennessee (and later Atlanta) aligned themselves with music companies and radio stations to establish themselves, and travelled where they could to promote themselves and their singing.
Around that time, a group from Texas began to attract attention with their simple, heartfelt renderings of traditional and new gospel songs. They were not affiliated with any of the music companies, and like many of their contemporaries, didn't limit their repertoire to solely gospel songs. The Chuck Wagon Gang, led by Dave (Dad) Carter and featuring his children, were endearing themselves to audiences on radio, first in Lubbock, and later in Dallas over powerful station WBAP. Initially they did mostly western songs, with only occasional gospel material thrown in, but as listener response indicated that their gospel material was better liked, eventually they began to incorporate gospel more and more into their repertoire, until by 1940, the group had eliminated all of the western and folk material they had been singing, and stuck to strictly gospel thereafter. That same year, the Chuck Wagon Gang signed the first of many contracts with Columbia Records, an alliance that would last some four decades.
But ask Dad Carter if he was doing a ministry or entertaining, and he would say, "This is the way I make my living. I am an entertainer."
No doubt most professional gospel singers of the day saw themselves in the same way. Although many of them were raised in churches, and sang the songs they were singing because they loved them and thought people needed to hear the message in them, the attitude at that time didn't appear to allow for the singers of those days to think of themselves as anything but singers entertaining people with good, inspiring songs.
But as groups like the Chuck Wagon Gang, the Blackwood Brothers, the Speers, and the LeFevres gained popularity, and thus exposure, it was a portend that changes were nigh in the gospel music industry.
Next month, I'll examine the rise of the Statesmen Quartet, and how the changes they affected in gospel music helped further to establish the lines in this alleged conflict between ministry and entertainment in gospel music.
Author: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Written: 01/01/2006
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Category: SG History 101
Comments: 31
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Once again, John, you have done a great job painting the historical landscape for us. I often wonder why we have to make entertainment and ministry mutually exclusive. To me it is a both/and proposition. Ministry that is dull will soon cease to minister. Also, I see entertainment as a ministry - the ministry of lifting our spirit.
I look forward to reading next month!
John-
In my humble opinion, much of the controversy over whether gospel music is entertainment or ministry comes from those horror stories we've heard about gospel quartet singers travelling around the country
Chris, you're not referring to any artists in particular in your comments, are you? Just checking...
I grew up loving Gospel, and it's history. I sang it with my family growing up around the ministry.
All the above are very good comments. The first sentence of this article seems to be asking if the PRIMARY PURPOSE is ministry or entertainment.
What I do today is not dependent on what Stamps and Baxter did way back then. And whatever they did back then has no bearing on whatever is right and true. Are you going to jump off a cliff because someone you admired did also? I don't know what the truth is on this matter, but we are not going to find it by looking back. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Phillipians 3:13-14). God's prize is ahead of us not behind.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit
- Galatians 5:25.
Brother Prater:
It seems to me that if I am a "true gospel artist," it would be based on what Jesus has done inside of me rather than my attachment to what the Speers, Stamps, or Statemen did back in the good ol' days. Whether I should sing for ministry or entertainment, or whether I should sing one style or another isn't based on what someone else did in the past, but on what is in my heart today -- whether that comes from my own thoughts or from God. My root is within my own self, what God has put in me. I rely on that when I am writing new songs or singing in church, not what others did in the past. I respect what the forerunners did, but I do not get too disturbed if I stray from their example. God is a greater song-giver than they.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit
- Galatians 5:25.
Well said.
Gospel singing isn't ordained to be a ministry. God has ordained the only the five-fold ministry to be that which is called. I'm not saying that you can't minister when you're singing in a group, but to truly call it a ministry is not found in the New Testament.
TJ [mam/sir]? ---With all due respect, what would your definition of "ministry" be? Within the body of most churches there are MANY types of ministries. Seems that you have very narrow version of what ministry is. Perhaps giving you the benefit of the doubt, in philosophy or theology, one could possibly exclude singing from "Ministry"? I don't see that myself however. It would be interesting to me hear how you came to that conclusion that singing is not a minsitry. No offense with my comments to you on that particular subject but I strongly disagree as will many other people.
John,
Another great article, John.
One other thought -
"religiosos" - Kevin, where did you learn that big word and what does it mean...... LOL
Deon Unthank
SoGospelNews.com
My Blog
Some people are like Slinkys… Not really good for anything, but they
still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs - Author Unknown
Does anyone know how to get permission to use stamps and baxter music on a missionry cd presentation? Its on an old cassete tape I have called Gospel Sing-a-Long ZLP 954s.
How can a gospel group stand on stage, for an event that sells tickets, stand on stage and sing the same set they did the night before, get paid a flat that is contractually bound, and call it ministry? Paul was an apostle...as well as an evangelist, but he didn't have a flat rate to go and preach, he was led of the Holy Ghost. Groups many times have to call, desperately for bookings and dates, just to make payroll...again, I dont see how that is defined as ministry.
TJ,
TJ, the same thing could be asked of many evangelists or pastors. They preach the same sermons, they negotiate their fees, and many of them beg for bookings in order to meet payroll. None of that makes it any less of a ministry.
I think there is one more avenue that no one has mentioned. In all of our gospel music "shows," we explain to those present that we are there to "encourage" them. Yes, we do entertain them, but most of the people we encounter come for that purpose, to be entertained and encouraged. We try to sing music that does that, encourage. I prefer to think that we are entertainers, but we have a different message in our songs.
As a former SG artist, I remember a time when I heard criticism about the Kingsmen being more entertainers than ministers because of Jim Hamill's humor. I couldn't believe that people could find fault when their program included so much ministry! As has been said previously, singing gospel music has to be entertaining to the audience in order to draw people to come in to hear the message. I have never understood the criticism of someone being entertaining at the same time they are presenting the gospel. As long as the message of salvation is also given and the Spirit is there, both entertainment and ministry are going to be accomplished...entertainment for the Christian and ministry for the unsaved.
I too am a former southern gospel artist. I guess later in my spritual walk, I realized that I was more of an entertainer than a minister when I traveled. Whether it was a cruise or a small church, my heart at times felt empty afterwards about how much of a show we did. Yes, I believe I was ministering, and yes I know there is nothing wrong with Christian entertainment, and Thank God for the many great and talented entertainers in southern gospel. I just don't see it as an ordained ministry. Thank God it is reaching out to people, I'm a product of that.
tj, you are losing me here. You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. You say you were ministering, yet it was not ministry..... That makes no sense. There are thousands of men and women who are out there every weekend delivering the message of the Gospel. How they deliver it is not what makes them a ministry or not. There have been thousands of souls saved by clown ministries, drama ministries, and others that some would call entertainment in their presentation. They are still ministries. You make it sound like there is nothing spoken about God or His Word. Even at concerts there is always talk of God and what He's done in lives, in addition to the message in the music.
The guy who heads your music program at church does not necessarily preach, yet he's called the Minister of Music. Why, because he is minstering to the people. Is he ordained in his ministry? I sure hope so.
Maybe it wasn't a ministry for you, or maybe you just didn't accept His call in that area, but either way, it IS an ordained ministry for many, many workers in the Gospel today.
Deon Unthank
SoGospelNews.com
My Blog
Some people are like Slinkys… Not really good for anything, but they
still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs - Author Unknown
For example: "EVIDENCE" is the premiere outreach music ministry group of The Gospel Quartet Society, Inc., Ms. Charlotte Ball President.
The question asked was what is the primary purpose of gospel music, ministry or entertainment? I feel that as a Christian whether I eat, or drink, or whatsoever I do, I do all to the glory of God! EVERYTHING in a believers life must be ministry-sharing the good news and pointing others toward Christ. Whether your a business man, garbage collector or singer. The question is what are your motives and who are you trying to uplift? I agree with others who have commented that ministry can be also entertaining. Jesus himself entertained the multitudes. Who wouldn't want to see the lame walk, the blind to see, the thousands feed! Christ emphasis was not on the miracles but who they pointed to-God. I am all for God's work to be entertaining but the focus should be on Christ! I know from hearing from others that singers can get in a rut from singing the same concert town after town. But I also know that in my own life I can get in a rut. I go to church, sing the songs, say the prayers, shake hands, say all the right things and not focus on worshiping God. But as a beleiver I try to focus on worshiping JESUS. That way when I go to a concert, or listen to singer at my church God, not the singer, can speak to me. When groups or individuals are trying to soley make money (and call themselves a business, as quoted of Dave Carter) I don't think they have a ministry, they have a business. They should take the name gospel away from their portrayal. Elvis sang gospel music, Dolly Parton sings gospel songs, even resently I heard Madonna sing a gospel Christmas song. This in no terms means they are a minister of the gospel. They are singing songs to make money not to uplift Christ. But when Christians are seeking to uplift God and spread His message then it is a ministry and I feel there is NOTHING wrong with entertaining!
Boy! This discussions sure opened up a BIG can of worms! Aren't we missing something here...the fact is that whether our gospel music is "entertainment," or "ministry," is not how we "perceive" it, but rather how the listeners "receive" it. Every time my group goes to a location to do a program, we do our very best to present the gospel in song. We are NOT reponsible for the result, but rather for the presentation.
Right on, chuckulz.
I go with what I wrote previously..."We provide an entertaining ministry. Any one who has ever heard us wouldn't care what you called it, but when someone comes to the alter railing a recieves the Lord, I become very clear for me that... we are an effective, entertaining ministry. Any questions?
I think JD Sumner offered the simplest answer to the question of "what is the PRIMARY purpose", the answer can be found at the front door. JD's answer was direct: if you bought a ticket, it's a business.
Do the performers hope someone is ministered to? Of course. But, if you take the money out of it, none of them would be there.
Tony
By the way, it says “Working Hard” over my picture.
That’s actually not true. I rarely work hard. 
Our dad was an "old time preacher man", and he used to say. "If you are going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk".
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