Dochuk, Darren. Children of God "30Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 67, 211. The Arkansas imaginary has explanatory power for The Martins inasmuch as southern gospel music revoices and revalues the distortions and elisions of religious identity and cultural history central to the self-concept of many white fundamentalists and evangelicals. The overwhelming majority of fans and professionals in contemporary southern gospel are white Christians who are "culturally southern, socially conservative, and Anglo-American. [South Barrington, IL: Willow Creek Association, 2007]). CCM is a broad category built around religious songs that, to the uninitiated, can sound virtually indistinguishable from a cross-section of mainstream American adult contemporary and Top 40.20Within southern gospel, "CCM" designates nearly all other forms of commercial Christian music deemed insufficiently pious or overly commercialized (marketed in ways different from southern gospel). Pamela Fox has noted that "while academia has for the most part abandoned the authentic as any kind of meaningful analytic category," the vernacular music of southern, white, rustic life and experience has "tended to preserve it. After Grant's divorce from Gary Chapman, her symbolic function in southern gospel expanded to include the corrupting effect of musical compromises on personal morality and the heternormative family.Southern gospel's disdain of CCM can come off as a kind of "Sister Bertha Better Than You" self-righteousness.27Here, I am borrowing an image first popularized by Ray Stevens in "Mississippi Squirrel Revival," on He Thinks He's Ray Stevens (Universal, 1987, MCAC-5517). Click here to view a larger image of front and back. Unlike "northern urban" gospel (a phrase with no currency outside academe), it is the preferred way to self-identify within the culture and the most widely recognized way to describe the music to outsiders. Indeed, specific aspects of a performer's biography usually only come into play for southern gospel when an instance of individual characteristics, crisis, or great fortune serve to point audiences toward notionally transcendent truths of fundamentalist theology. Unfailing Love The history and role of bluegrass, old-time, and mountain musics, particularly songs with pietistic lyrics that have found a home in southern gospel, is understudied. and from the kitchen of Joyce Martin Sanders, the sweet aroma of fresh baked cinnamon rolls fills the air. The Martins's family narrative emphasizes anti-modern, unsophisticated, and materially modest childhoods, reinforced with a washed-out photo of the family's ramshackle cabin. It emphasizes the unfolding of God's dealings with humanity in phases or eras ("dispensations"). My focus on professional southern gospel music is distinct from the avocational or amateur tradition, known as convention singing. . John F. Mooney, review of The Best of The Martins, directed by Bill Gaither, Amazon.com, July 29, 2013, accessed October 15, 2013, http://www.amazon.com/review/R399G8O3TFUQHH/. The family all returns to their parents farm in Arkansas for an entire week. Follow @JoJoShazam1. There's Not A Crown O Bethlehem Town . They give the reality of depression and anxiety center stage when they perform, knowing that talking about it takes it from the shadows of denial and into the light where individuals can deal and heal. God Will Make a Way "Fundamentalism" indicates evangelicals for whom militancy in resistance to liberalism is the defining feature of lived religion.22George Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 15. : Gaither Music, 2011. Except [we didn't] know where to go, all the rooms were locked, too much going on in the auditorium, so Mark suggests we go into the bathroom. 1 (1997): 7582; and Harrison, "Grace To Catch a Falling Soul." Decade. Smell of Smoke Through southern gospel, participants "develop the capacity to think and act as modern pluralists or situational relativists when necessary, while retaining their identification with antimodern religious traditions that notionally believe in timeless, unchanging absolutes. For an analysis of the cultural and religious tensions between southern gospel traditionalists, who founded the GMA, and the CCM fans and performers whose tastes have dominated the GMA for nearly forty years, see Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 9196. On The Promises See Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 13. Averyfineline.com, September 24, 2012, accessed October 1, 2013, http://averyfineline.com/2012/09/24/slouching-toward-pigeon-forge/. This reputation is curious, because most of the music the group has written, recorded, and performed outside Homecoming merrily mixes and merges stylistic features from adjacent genres and traditions: most notably, CCM, country, southern and urban gospel, choral music, inspirational, light rock, pop, and classic hymnody. Joseph Cash Cash, Joseph L. "Joe" Age 81 of Dayton, passed away on Tuesday, April 25, 2023. Joyce: So we went into the bathroom. The group consists of Joyce Martin Sanders, Jonathan Martin and Judy Martin Hess. to Cart, I Am, You Are (CD Track) - $10.00 - Add This young trio would get so excited when the music director of their home church, Tillou Baptist Church in Bastrop, Louisiana, would ask if anyone had a song to share. Singing and songwriting is what Joyce does. Color Me Although the male quartet continued to dominate southern gospel's self-image, the genre as a commercial enterprise became home for strains of more traditional white evangelical vernacular sacred musics, including explicitly pietistic bluegrass and country gospel. Let There Be During the last three decades of the twentieth century, these conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists ceased perceiving themselves in the Nixonian paradigm as a silent majority existing voicelessly and invisibly within mainstream US politics and culture. Photograph by Judy Baxter. Copyright 2023 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Joyce is the oldest at 43. Mae is a beautiful soul. Somebody Give Me A Stone Out of His Great Love Let It Show Their passion to share the love and gospel of Jesus Christ is at an all time high. Yet it is a mistake to treat southern gospel as wholly synonymous with white gospel. The conflation of "southern" and "white" to describe this music circulates widely among scholars and non-specialists, but has only been tentatively stated in scholarship. Southern gospel's cultural sustainability turns out to be an urgent matter of concern, even if southern gospel people themselves do not tend to speak about it that way. Most High The journey hasnt always been easy, but Mae continues to face each day with her beautiful smile. Except For Grace Judy resides in Columbus, GA and is married to Jake. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_29', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_29').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); But the development of professional gospel resonates most powerfully as part of white fundamentalist evangelical withdrawal from mainstream secular society over the long twentieth century. Goff, Close Harmony, 264282, traces these and other important bluegrass groups in southern history. These longstanding conflicts precede the twentieth century. But I'll say this: I've never been more honored to sing about Jesus and for Jesus. Sacred Potter Alexandria, Ind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. The journey hasnt always been easy, but Mae continues to face each day with her beautiful smile. Instead, CCM performers and fans came together around a common commitment to reclaim the devil's music for God. When developmental milestones were delayed we knew something was not quite right, but Mae's pediatrician encouraged us to not compare her to her older brother and not to worry. Those little hands would go straight up in the air, excited to share what they had practiced all week. November 13, 2001, accessed September 23, 2013, http://www.crosswalk.com/1108828/. It emphasizes the unfolding of God's dealings with humanity in phases or eras ("dispensations"). His book Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern Gospel Music was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2012. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_56', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_56').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); A particular Arkansas primitivism merits attention here. It was a huge moment, and they were literally scared to death knees were shaking, ears were ringing, and the world simply stopped. If the Mid South Boys were singing within a two-tothree-hour drive, they would invite The Martins to. Be Over the next few years, they sang everywhere possible. During their ministry, they have appeared on many grand stages and renowned platforms. Every Song Of Praise, You Saved Me (CD) - $5.00 - Add Joyce Sanders is on Facebook. Heaven's Child [5] Jonathan Martin (b. Standing By Their Mom taught them how to sing and soon how to harmonize. Professional black gospel, which has a historically longstanding relationship with African American worship traditions to a much greater extent than commercial white Christian music has with white Protestant churches, has remained creatively vibrant. This transformation left untouched only the Ozarks and Ouachita to the north and west. Summerville. His interview enacts a modern gospel version of the venerable Arkansas Traveler colloquy in which a high-born southerner (the Traveler) engages an Arkansas Squatter in a dialogue about the differences of class and geography.60Bill Clinton's presidential campaign used the Traveler name and image as a way to strengthen his populist appeal running against a Washington insider. For more on the demographic profile of southern gospel see Harrison. When Gaither says, "You can take them anywhere," he seems to mean that in his role as producer and impresario he can rely on The Martins to stand and deliver whatever the show demands. November 26, 1921 - April 16, 2023 Doris Marie Liljegren passed away quietly in her sleep on Sunday, April 16, 2023 at the age of 101. Mark Five, [no identifying number]. She was an extremely happy child with bright eyes and an infectious open mouthed smile. For an extended discussion of "southern gospel" see, Douglas Harrison. More Like A Whisper Dayton offers an alternative account of "evangelicalism," emphasizing the rise of Pentecostalism and holiness traditions, which, as Jonathan Dodrill notes, "do not seem so bent to ward off liberalism." The camera cuts back and forth between The Martins and Gaither, occasionally taking in the four of them in a wide shot. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_18', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_18').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); I explore the Arkansas imaginary through the state's most famous southern gospel sibling trio, The Martins, their music, and their reception since approximately 1990.191990 coincides roughly with the emergence of what would become the Bill and Gloria Gaither Homecoming Friends video (later concert) series. Examining the rise of the gospel singing trio The Martins and the deployment of their rural Arkansas roots to shape their popularity in Christian music entertainment, this essay reveals how an evocation of place functions in the practice of religious life within commercial southern (white) gospel music and fundamentalist Protestantism. See Heilbut, "Black Urban Hymnody." And I've never been more sure of the path I've chosen." Winnsboro. When she came out, Mark grabbed her arm and said, "You have to hear these kids sing!" Stephen Marini has provided the most sustained interpretive examination of bluegrass families in southern gospel: Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture (UrbanaChampaign: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 296320. Mercy Seat Nail to Cross Jewelry isdesigned & handcrafted by JW Martin, our dad. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_23', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_23').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Within commercial Christian music, most white fundamentalist fans and professionals left cold by CCMand committed to traditional modes of evangelistic outreachcoalesced around "southern" gospel. Randall Balmer, My Eyes of Have Seen the Glory: A Journey Into the Evangelical Subculture in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); and Donald Dayton and Robert Johnson, eds., The Variety of Evangelicalism, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001). As Far As Faith Will Take Me This essay is interested in how the imagining of a place shapes and is shaped by understandings of vernacular sacred music and the shifting identities this music contains. [4] Judy Martin Hess (b. Many fans and most observers interpreted her actions and words as a rebuke of a mass wedding of gay and straight couples performed during the broadcast. Pass Jennifer Lena has exhorted scholars of music culture to deemphasize sounds and instead examine "social structures and collective actions. She has Angelman Syndrome and is the happiest girl you will ever meet. Heal The Wound . Christ Alone Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as: names, dates, place of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships. The peer reviewers for Southern Spaces provided generous feedback that sharpened my thinking and refined the essay's argument considerably. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_63', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_63').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); In considering The Martins's arrival "From Arkansas With Love," I have demonstrated how a network of religious, geographic, and cultural associations merge in the construction of imagined place. Singing and songwriting is what Joyce does. See Heilbut, "Black Urban Hymnody." For more on the rise and spread of southern gospel regionally and nationally, see James R. Goff Jr., Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel (Chapel HIll: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 50109; Don Cusic, The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel Music (Madison: Popular Press, 1990), 153162; 171176. Jonathan Martin and his wife, Dara, live in Des Moines with their six children (Craig Harris, "Martins Storm Back onto the Scene," sgnscoops.com, December 17, 2013 [accessed January 31, 2014)]. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_54', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_54').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); connecting their identities, the group's history, and their Arkansas roots with the force of southern gospel music. Sometimes this includes black gospel, particularly the performers who take inspiration from the mainstream music industry (pop, rock, R&B, and hip-hop). Her arrival brought so much joy to our family. Marquee ensemble singers who once would have driven a group's fame and success today leave ensemble work and go solo to cut costs and stay viable.35Examples of changes and shifts within professional southern gospel since 1990 include the disbanding of numerous groups as well as the retirements and deaths of many of the mid-twentieth century singers who anchored the genre's golden era. Her arrival brought so much joy to our family. North American gospel history and the cultural realities of contemporary southern gospel defy further generalization. In The Presence Of Jehovah Richard A. Landes (New York: Routledge, 2000). Still, the cultivation and creation of twentieth-century commercial black gospel's golden age (19451960) was largely rooted in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other urban centers in the Midwest and Northeast where many black southerners moved during the Great Migration. You O Holy Night Browse Phoenix area obituaries on Legacy.com. "Gospel Music." Join Facebook to connect with Joyce Sanders and others you may know. I Must Tell Jesus Browse Birmingham local obituaries on Legacy.com. Several prominent bluegrass and old time families have been mainstays of southern gospel since family acts began to emerge in the 1930s and 1940s: most prominently, The Lewis Family and The Chuck Wagon Gang, and later the Primitive Quartet, The Easters, and The Isaacs. Get your Still Standing T-Shirts while they last! Mae is always happy and faces life fiercely. to Cart, Silence Of The Lambs (CD) - $5.00 - Add to Cart, Nail to Cross Jewelry isdesigned & handcrafted by JW Martin, our dad. Who is Joyce Sanders? Answers.tv, powered by Answers Media Group, delivers live and on-demand video content from Answers in Genesis, an apologetics ministry dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and to boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. DVD. You can take them anywhere. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_38', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_38').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Certainly this is true of southern gospel. Lower compositional sophistication, more uneven production quality, and rougher cuts by commercial standardsall defining features of the southern gospel sound of the past twenty yearscan function for many evangelicals and fundamentalists as indices of a more real music and catalysts for a more authentic experience of the religious self. This dynamic was captured in the 2014 Grammys. Taylor's development of the social imaginary builds on (but also departs from) Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 2006). The Word is Mercy Michael expressed the immediate need for an acapella song. In The Arms Of Someone Who Loves You See ". For more on links between country and gospel, see Douglas Harrison, "Grace to Catch a Falling Soul: Country, Gospel, and Evangelical Populism in the Music of Dottie Rambo," in Walking the Line: Country Music Lyricists and the American Culture, edited by Roxanne Harde and Thomas Alan Holmes (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013), 7796. Mae is her 20 year old daughter. Nominated in the "Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music" category, CCM soloist Natalie Grant attended the ceremony, only to leave before the show ended. Man, Crosswalk.com. Redeemed Comparatively little has been published about The Martins's biography beyond birth, marriages, and professional accomplishments.41The basic details provided here derive largely from The Martins's disclosures on stage, press coverage, conservations I have had with industry professionals, and my experience. Fortunately, new and forthcoming work in the study of southern gospel is beginning to scrutinize Gloria Gaither's role as a Christian entrepreneur, thinker, and writer much more closely. "Place" signifies a physical location, a material culture, a set of affiliated social relations, and more nebulous meanings associated with place as a concept. Southern gospel denotes "an overlapping, commercialized national network of musical products, professionals, and their fans, commonly referred to as 'the industry'" (Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 45). Cry Me A River Arkansas has long been defined by poverty and isolation born of the cashless frontier societies of the state's uplands and the agrarian barter economies that prevailed in the lowlands.55Morris Arnold, "The Significance of the Arkansas Colonial Experience," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 51 (Spring 1992): 7880. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_1', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_1').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); In its modern, commercial form, southern gospel emerges "from a broad-based, post-Civil War recreational culture built around singing schools and community (or 'convention') singings popular among poor and working-class whites throughout the South and Midwest. And both black and white gospel have "borrowed those aspects, reinterpreting them for their own cultures" and purposes. Grove Music Online. I Will Go The Distance Courtesy of Judy Baxter. Following the rehearsal, they all headed to the hotel and drifted off. The Willow Creek megachurch, under the leadership of Bill Hybels, is the most prominent example of a seeker-sensitive church. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_48', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_48').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); What continues to distinguish The Martins is their acoustic style full of complex harmonies, modulations, and voicings that reflect influences of country, bluegrass, folk, old-time, choral, black gospel, and vocal jazz styles and arrangements. The siblings all lived most of their formative years in Arkansas, where they learned to sing and with which their comments in public indicate a strong identification. And I've never been more sure of the path I've chosen." Are Holy The Best of the Martins. Joyce learned harmony first and then Jonathan. They are excited to see touring schedules increasing and venues reopening. (Jennifer Jones, ", For a cogent analysis of how shape-note gospel from the South mediated cultural conflicts and status instabilities of white, southern farmers, see Gavin James Campbell, "'Old Can Be Used Instead of New': Shape Note Singing and the Crisis of Modernity in the South, 18801920,", Premillennial dispensationalism has been the dominant theological paradigm for fundamentalist evangelicals in the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_17', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_17').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Such an approach asks how southern gospel artists (most from beyond the state) use Arkansas's status as an imaginative resource to make sense of themselves and their music in late twentieth and early twenty-first century fundamentalist Protestantism.18I have in mind the period in American conservative and fundamentalist evangelicalism inaugurated by Richard Nixon's conjuring of the "silent majority" of cultural traditionalists who opposed the advance of liberal policies and social practices in the US. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_25', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_25').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); conservatives primarily in denominationally unaffiliated megachurchessouthern gospel has come to voice the revanchist critique of non-denominational evangelicalism offered by old-line denominational fundamentalists (namely, Southern Baptists, General Baptists, Free Will Baptists, and Independent Baptists; Nazarenes; Church of God; Church of Christ; Assemblies of God; and the more fundamentalist strains of Methodism).26These denominations were most frequently represented in original ethnographic research I have conducted into the contemporary culture of southern gospel. For a recording of the set piece associated with Gerald Wolfe's time with the Dumplin' Valley Boys, see This is Your Life George Younce, directed by Charlie Waller (n.d., Louisville, KY: National Quartet Convention), DVD. Sounds Baseball with Mae Mae! Media releases promoting The Martins tout this diversity and eclecticism. . It was here that Gloria first heard their amazing harmonies. Many fans and most observers interpreted her actions and words as a rebuke of a mass wedding of gay and straight couples performed during the broadcast. I Love to the Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns, won a 1996 Grammy for Best Southern Gospel, Country Gospel, or Bluegrass Gospel Album. They live in Nashville and have two children (Martin Sanders was married previously to Harrie McCullough, with whom he had a child). As their schedule increased, they began homeschooling. Religion Dispatches. They know God still has big plans, and they simply follow His directive.
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