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Transcription: [00:03:54]
Um, a couple of things that you should notice about the dress of the particular group, which says something about the aesthetic.
[00:04:05]
They will be dressed in dresses, but they will be uniform dress.
[00:04:11]
I don't know how many of you have seen in it in the PBS shows with, uh, the West coast group, the Hawkin singers.
[00:04:19]
There, they tend to reflect the California, or the western lifestyle, the do your own thing style.
[00:04:27]
In other words, you would have maybe 100 or 50 singers, but every singer would be dressed in something entirely different. There is no sense of uniform there.
[00:04:37]
Wherein, the midwestern and eastern gospel singing groups, you will--they will either be dressed in robes, or they will be dressed, as in the case, in this past week, of the new, uh, of the Sensational Cherubims, in matching suits.
[00:04:56]
So there's a sense of uniformity, which the midwest and the east tend to have held on to, wherein the California, uh, style of expression is much different.
[00:05:11]
The type of music that they will be singing, uh, that you'll be hearing this week, comes from this century.
[00:05:21]
It is, uh, perhaps had it's beginning at the turn of the century.
[00:05:29]
There was a minister, a United Methodist minister, by the name of Charles Albert Tindley, who was pastor of the Tindley Memorial United Methodist Church in Philadelphia.
[00:05:44]
Who, in order to, spice up, or in order to enhance his worship service, wrote songs.
[00:05:52]
They were not the traditional spirituals, which come out of the period of slavery. They were not from the Methodist hymnal.
[00:06:05]
But they were his own creations. Some of these songs, "Stand by Me". "When storms of life are raging, stand by me" uh, he wrote himself, and his daughter performed them during the service.
[00:06:22]
He is seen as really the forerunner, or the grandfather, of black gospel music.