Wy doesn't gospel music cross over more often?

[Jules]

I mean when it it good.. it is GOOOOOOOOD!

The Stones, Madonna, and even Moby have all hijacked it at various times...

Time for a gospel / pop crossover?

Can I have a witness?



I suppose the music industry would just let through ONE act and that would be TOTALLY unfair.. (corrupt idiots) anyhow.. musically at least..... I could do with some 'churchin up"

Was cookin?

Can anyone recommend a classic 'must have' gospel compilation?

[Matthew Murray]

One of my favourite gospel influenced Rock/alternative acts is Spiritualized. Both the albums "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space" and "Amazing Grace"' are absolutely KILLER.

And, if you can wait a few months, I'll let you hear our new album. I was bitten by the gospel bug a few years ago, and its' definitely found it's way into some of our stuff.

[Jules]

Great!

I suppose answering my own question,the record industry regularly f**ks up with solo artists and bands so signing a whole choir would be totally beyond their abilities..and a disaster waiting to happen..

Polyphonic Spree kinda had "faux gospel" elements and were signed for 5 minutes a few years ago..

[MusicKat]

The Blind Boys of Alabama had "Gospel" in spades! Not a choir, but certainly a vocal approach.

[Matthew Murray]

Hah, I liked the Polyphonic Spree all things considered. They were definitely different.
I suppose "different" is why they are no longer signed...

But yeah, I don't know of too many gospel acts that are signed to a label. I imagine that group of old guys that's been touring forever is probably signed ... they're just amazing. It's a shame I can't remember they're name. Occasionally they'll appear on late night talk shows or award shows. I think one of them was blind. Or were they all blind? Damn, what was the point in bringing this up, I can't remember a damn thing about them.

[Matthew Murray]

HA! Blind boys of Alabama. Hilarious, you read my mind. That's who I was posting about when you posted that.

[gamrecords]

Robert Randolph is a steel player that came from the church, now is big on the jamband scene.

michael

[KurtR]

Just about every pop drummer I know came from church roots.

Brian Frasier-Moore - Christina A, Janet Jackson, Usher...
Teddy Campbell - Britney Spears...
Erik Tribbet - Jill Scott and lots

In fact most come from Philly.

[Kawriver]

Great Gospel, great bass playing and great song writing. Especially on Purposed by Design. All good stuff.

[max cooper]

Elton John often mined Gospel early in his career;

"Take Me to the Pilot"

"Border Song"

"Salvation"

Great songs...

[84K]

The main reason Gospel doesn't cross over more:

Music has moved more towards angst. Gospel does not have teen anger/angst. Youth angst is always the hottest selling pop music. Rap, rock, hip-hop, all thrive on angry energy. Fighting the machine is now done with a more theatrical attitude. Screaming, whining and complaining, sells more then soul. Don't get me wrong, I love youthful angst and energy, but I love gospel too.

[Paul David]

I produce Gospel and I sure wouldn't mind it crossing over. Here's a CD I did in 05 by Briana Scott... This girl has some lungs!

http://brianascott.com/Media.htm

[2leod]

Love the Blind Boys! Saw them opening for Tom Petty at the Garage (GM Place)... they were having church! One of them kept wandering toward the front of the stage as if to get closer to the crowd, and the guitar player had to keep hauling him back. Eventually he gave up and led him off the stage and they wandered through the crowd... I got "beered" when that happened, everyone was on their feet hootin' and hollerin'. There's a great album of theirs with David Lindley, John Hammond and Charlie Musselwhite, and their Christmas album is a staple in our house pretty much all year 'round. We're going to see them next month at a smaller venue... can't wait!

Robert Randolph is great, I like the Campbell Brothers for sacred steel though. I've been messing with a pedal steel for the last couple of months, those cats have me inspired to start diggin' in again!

[jomo1234]

Originally Posted by Jules

Great!

I suppose answering my own question,the record industry regularly f**ks up with solo artists and bands so signing a whole choir would be totally beyond their abilities..and a disaster waiting to happen..

Polyphonic Spree kinda had "faux gospel" elements and were signed for 5 minutes a few years ago..

Polyphonic Spree were signed at lot longer than "five minutes". They are still "signed"....just not on a major label.

[matt_tricks]

Originally Posted by Jules

I mean when it it good.. it is GOOOOOOOOD!

The Stones, Maddona, and even Mobey have all hyjacked it at various times...

Time for a gospel / pop crossover?

Can I have a witness?



I suppose the music industry would just let through ONE act and that would be TOTALLY unfair.. (corrupt idiots) anyhow.. musically at least..... I could do with some 'churchin up"

Was cookin?

Can anyone recomend a classic 'must have' gospel compilation?

Mary J Blige had a little crossover thing going on, did any of Rev Al Green's stuff make it onto the secular charts?

One of the hands down best produced albums I've ever heard from ANY genre is the latest Kirk Franklin "Hero". It's straight up gospel (not crossover) but that is some SERIOUS production. Check it out if you get the chance.

//m

[D.F.]

Tender by Blur was a British No.1. A fairly successful gospel/pop crossover.

[joelpatterson]

I just finished a project for a band Streams of Mercy where they played all these old gospel hymns from the Civil War era in a bluegrassy, acoustic, Seals & Croftsy style, creating rhythms and backbeats in place of the old, marching-style pulse of the originals.

Really created a cool feeling--simple, direct, swinging language, with the pulse and flutter of fingerpicking, rolling bass lines, skittering mandolins.

[Matthew Murray]

Great call. I adore Blur.

Originally Posted by D.F.

Tender by Blur was a British No.1. A fairly successful gospel/pop crossover.

[Jules]

Originally Posted by jomo1234

Polyphonic Spree were signed at lot longer than "five minutes". They are still "signed"....just not on a major label.

My bad..

Hey I played a tiny part in their first release here in the UK.. having seen them at SXSW I returned & raved about them to a hip small label guy (who missed the SXSW shows and was v curious about them) who went for it and decided to release em here. As they skimmed the lower regions of the national charts, (the biggest success for that small label ever) the label boss thanked me for the tip off. Prior to that, the moment I got back from that festival, I put forward an idea to their record shop owner / manager (Dave?) that Steve Remote and I somehow use the Aurasonic remote truck to record an album under a spec deal.. but I very quickly came to understand that their recording situation was already fully in place and it was merely a label they needed....

The A&R / marketing person who missed the oportunity to release their song "Soldier Girl" to capitalise on that missing woman soldier Jessica Lynch.... http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/South/03/...ng.soldier.ap/ needs to be beaten with a very large stick... It was PERFECT and would have been a superb, ironic counter cultural indie rock moment in history... "I found my Soldier girl".. Shame shame shame....

[Darius van H]

The problem with most gospel is it's too cheesy.........great chords in Gospel though....and amazing musicians..... Go to www.pandora.com and listen to "the five blind boys of Alabama" - great stuff!

[McPhaul]

You guys have no idea how strange it is that this post comes up now. My old drummer showed up Thursday of this week after almost a year of nothing. Seems he was in rehab and at a religious retreat trying to get clean. He shows up with a whole new musical taste too. Third Day has replaced Tool in his CD player. I love that guy's voice. I only heard a live album but the writing was pretty good. Looks like I may need to learn a few religious, if not gospel, songs.

Cool topic.

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Darius van H

The problem with most gospel is it's too cheesy.........great chords in Gospel though....and amazing musicians..... Go to www.pandora.com and listen to "the five blind boys of Alabama" - great stuff!

I came across the blind boys via the Gabriel album 'UP'.
Gospel really isn't my thing but these guys are amazing.
Can people suggest more of this sort of thing in the Gospel category?

I like a good dose of sex/drugs/rock in roll in my tunes.
As soon as someone namechecks the 'creator' I lose interest.

An aside. Awards ceremonies are a nightmare- I really appreciate Spike Milligan getting up one time to collect an award and saying "I would like to thank me. None of this would have been possible without me" or some such.
Funny bugger.

[Fletcher]

A "God song" here and there is one thing... like the Stones "Shine a Light" or Hank Williams "I Saw The Light", or the Elton John mentions... or even a well veiled "God group" [like "Kansas"... total "Christian band" with the God references well placed for wide spread/secular consumption]... but a steady diet gets tedious.

One of my favorite albums ever made was "Temple of the Dog"... which may not be an overt attempt at a gospel record... but a lot of the feels and harmonies are straight from the book "gospel".

Most blues, and soul music has direct roots to the church... like Aretha Franklin for example.

We don't have a culture that's built around the emotion of music these days... we have a culture that's built around a kick ass video with lots of bling and lots of ass... with some overcompressed, grid accurate, grainy sounding, no build, minor emotion crap being marketed as the "next big thing".

To be unfortunately honest... a lot of this is OUR fault. While some of us do records for a living... I dare say the majority of us do demos. I know most of my work these days is demos [occasional product, but mostly demos]. We get them while they're young and impressionable but have we really taken the time to make the impression we can make if we felt like expending the effort?

In our work as "producers" [or in our work as engineers working with younger producers] it might be in the best interest of the artist [or producer] to break down some of the influences that have been ignored in the production of "modern" music.

I'm talking about sitting back with an "up and coming" producer and showing him [her] some of the stuff we have found inventive and inspiring over the years. I'm talking about sitting back with the main songwriter of a band and turning him onto some "history" they may not have ever heard nor experienced.

My oldest kid and my wife reminded me why I got into this shit in the first place.

I always want to hear what's in my kid's CD player... she gets in the car and the CD goes into the car system. Last fall she surprised the shit out of me... out came "Who's Next". I hadn't heard that album in probably 20 years. I was floored. The writing, the arranging the audio[!!!!!]... perfect. What a great album.

Then my wife got me an iPod "Nano" as a holiday present along with a bunch of the Sun Records catalog [like 60 songs!!]. My youngest kid had an iPod shuffle so I was already on iTunes buying her shit like "Sly and the Family Stone" and "Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five" [moron kid thinks she wants to be a drummer when she grows up... I keep telling her that she can't do both but she keeps on practicing no matter what I say].

From there I've been going back and discovering all this shit I hadn't listened to in years. This renewed excitment in why I got into this shit in the first place has been nothing short of entirely inspirational. The people with whom I work in the little room with no window and big speakers are all getting a dose of history whether they want it or not.

There has been a definite focus on the magic of the secular employment of gospel techniques in my stuff since the beginning... but now it's getting a little more upfront. I'm not talking about the "God" part... but the emotional expression within the music [of good gospel music... a lot of the "Contemporary Christian" bullshit is just middle of the road horseshit with nausiating God references at every turn... I'm talking about "black church/A.M.E. gospel!!].

Sorry for the diatribe [this thread hit on something that's been in the front of my existance for the last few months... so putting some of the thoughts into words has been mildly theraputic]

'may the good lord shine a light on you... make every song, your favorite tune'...

Peace.

[shikawkee]

It's all God's music.

Bob Olhsson and I just had the pleasure of producing
the Blind Boys of Alabama. They are the real deal.

[Levi]

As someone who's been involved as a producer, player, and writer in the Christian/Gospel industry for over 10 years, let me shed a little light on what I've experienced, and currently find myself shaking my head about...

There are many, many problems within the Christian/Gospel industry at the "major lable" level (i.e. Word Records, EMI Christian, Provident). The first is that they're all VERY afraid to spend money on acts. Recording budgets, 10 years ago, were from $30,000 on the low side to $200,000 for the biggest acts. Now, budgets range from FREE (!!!!) to $40,000 on the high side. Everyone fights over a palm-sized pie... there are only a handful of acts on "majors" at this point, so people will do anything to work on them. Radio promotion and marketing are close to non-existent. And yes, "payola" applies here as well. (True story- one of the biggest radio promoters in the country wouldn't play your songs unless you sent him the masters for him to "remix" the way he felt fit the radio format. Come to find out, he was RE-RECORDING THE DRUMS on most of the songs, via his home studio, as he was a "closet drummer" and felt that most of the drumming sucked! Go figure...) You have about 3-5 producers doing everything, while all the other folks wonder whether to work for Pizza Hut or Papa John's this month. It's very sad. Many move over to the "mainstream" industry, with success as writers, touring players, etc. In my own experience in the mainstream, I found that I enjoyed the enviroment much better from the fact that if you were going to get screwed, they'd tell you ahead of time so you could make appropriate plans! Also, lables are down to staffs of 5-20 people, instead of 50-250 as it was in the past. Not one new signing "broke" and was successful in 2005 in the Christian pop market... only established artists. Also, the Christian sales demographic is very "give me something for nothing." (I hate to admit this, being a Christian myself, but it's so very true! I remember touring in the mid-90's, having churches bounce checks or say after a show that they couldn't pay the remaining honorarium... pretty sad.) I guess to make a long story short, it's what is being felt in the "mainstream" market... just on a smaller scale... but that makes it even more problematic!

Several years back, almost every single act that was signed to a Christian record deal did it with the intent of "crossing over." The lables wanted the same thing, as the $'s looked pretty appealing, especially witnessing the success of Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman and the like. IMO, their priorities were incorrect for using the vehicle in that way, instead of "growing where you're planted." Yes, less money is available in the Christian marketplace, but you can still make a very healthy living and share your music, talents, and message. If it crosses over, such as Switchfoot and the likes, awesome! But I feel that if you're signing a Christian deal for that intent only, you've missed it. A dear friend of mine is now the A&R director at Word Records and he's realized the problem and is of the mindset of making Christian/Gospel music, and the marketing of it, back to the way it used to be. I am excited for his convictions, but feel he's swimming upstream, as the "higher-up's" look to feel differently.

There are a lot of very talented folks in this industry... Chris Rice is a ridiculous writer and artist, Nichole Nordeman as well, and Nicole Mullen is a great R&B artist. Darwin Hobbs, on the gospel side, is by far one of the finest I've had the pleasure of working with and becoming friends with... in ANY market! It's a great gang of people... a great pool of talent... it's just a very sad industry situation. I guess it comes down to faulty people, myself included, attempting to support and run a faulty industry that's going to become nothing without serious change.

[Surfkat]

"Love Me Like A Rock" by Paul Simon with the Dixie Hummingbirds. That's a great tune that brings the upliting joy of Black Gospel into pop mainstream. They won a Grammy for that one. Gospel at it's best is all about emotion and love of the spiritual side of life. It doesn't have to be about GOD per se. There are some mainstream artists who mine the spiritual side of things without being overtly religious. Van Morrison is one that I dig. Look at Carlos Santana, he's moved a few units lately with his spirtual approach to music. I think the best music always connects in some way with the mystical, unseen world.

The Hummingbirds come to mind because I engineered their last album a couple of years ago. It's on Rounder Records (shameless plug). The bandleader Ira Tucker is 75 years old and still has one of the great voices on the planet. there is something inherently moving about a great voice no matter what they are singing about.

[joelpatterson]

Certainly--undoubtedly--"Who's Next" feels like the quintessence of what music should be. A brash, energetic frenzy of urgency, a real passionate statement. Delivered in a way that unleashes energy, because it's grappling, struggling.

When I was a kid, I would listen to "Who's Next" and be bored, it was like: all my friends liked it and... I thought I should like it too, so I did, I learned to say that this was just the most awesome music on the face of the earth, I learned to accept it.

But really truly all this blues, the Led Zeppelin, lots of the Doors, I just slaved through it waiting for something to happen. I'll call you a crawling king snake... but you've got through this whole song, and you've only used three words, "crawling," "snake," and "den." Slow death on the plains...

I know I can't listen to "Who's Next" without feeling the wrenching power of my childhood coming back at me. I can't say anymore what's inherent greatness and what's my mind playing tricks on me... I guess there's never any firm separating one from the other... And yet when the complaint these days runs to the phoniness, packagedness, inauthenticy of music, that's obviously against a standard. A standard of truth and testimony, like "Mr. Tambourine Man," and that's not just because I remember "Mr. Tambourine Man" as this brave statement I heard as a kid. Or, not.

There's no doubt a link between the production styles of these days and the watering-down and second-guessicizing that everyone hates. We want a rebel. We will manufacture one if necesary.