Entering the mainstream in the late 1930s with a variety of crossover gospel hits (including some of Dorsey’s compositions), Tharpe is largely credited for pioneering the pop-gospel genre, and even providing a prototype for rock ’n’ roll to come. Outside of church, guitarists including Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson furthered the early gospel blues style, but singer/guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe was one of the first to bring it inside.Ī child prodigy, Tharpe (born Rosetta Nubin) began playing guitar at the age of four, and at six joined her mother on an evangelical tour in which “concerts” were equal parts music and sermon. Dorsey, who recorded with Tampa Red as Georgia Tom, transformed church music by introducing jazz and blues styles to the genre for the first time, opening the doors for gospel blues guitarists to enter just a handful of years later. In the early 1930s, the blues pianist Thomas A. The acoustic guitar’s first gateway into church services was through the emergence of gospel music in the African-American evangelical and Baptist churches of the South. Roebuck “Pops” Staples and the Staples Singers, shown here in 1950, were instrumental in bringing gospel music to a broader audience. But it wasn’t until the advent of the electric guitar in the 1930s that guitarists were fully capable of being heard in the mix of choirs and ensembles.

Martin & Company, the guitar became more capable of standing on its own against other acoustic instruments. When steel strings were first commercially introduced in the 1920s by C.

The acoustic guitar didn’t receive its modern form until the mid-19th century, and for a long time it was too quiet to be heard before a large crowd-such as a congregation-due to the animal gut that was used for strings, not to mention a lack of electric amplification. Part of what kept the guitar’s voice in worship was not just culture but logistics. But over time, the acoustic guitar has been far more widely accepted as a viable musical voice in church and synagogue settings. In the United States, this mostly pertains to Christian and Jewish contexts-Islamic services, even today, typically feature just unaccompanied singing-for reasons that range from traditional law, cultural trends, and popular opinion. How the acoustic guitar has shaped the modern music of the Judeo-Christian liturgy.įrom the December 2018 issue of Acoustic Guitar | BY KATE KOENIGįor an instrument that’s been so vital to the evolution of popular music over the past century, the guitar has traveled a long road in finding its place in religious culture.

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