Gospel

(footsteps) Can't nobody Do me like Jesus Can't nobody Do me like the Lord Can't nobody Do me like Jesus He's my friend Oh, can't nobody Can't nobody Do me like Jesus, do me like Jesus Can't nobody, can't nobody Do me like the Lord, do me like the Lord Can't nobody GATES: As the decade turned from the '60s to the '70s, and as fashions changed and tastes evolved, Black preachers and gospel artists tried more than ever to spread their message by meeting the people where they were, at music festivals, discothques, at political rallies, in the streets, or even overseas.

Inevitably, the sound of gospel would continue to unfold, absorbing influences from R&B and soul to inspire a new generation in search of higher ground.

Can't nobody do me like Jesus Can't nobody do me like Jesus I said nobody Nobody, nobody Nobody HADLEY: In the '70s into the '80s and '90s, we're in the age of gospel choirs, mass choirs, but you also see gospel music continuing to think about the vagaries of life, people singing about family.

REV.

BARRON: In Black church, the church is your family.

So, it's no surprise that we see the rise of these gospel dynastic families.

GATES: Many of these gospel dynasties, which dominated the '70s and '80s, traced their roots to the Church of God in Christ, also known as COGIC.

REV.

BARRON: The Clarks, The Hawkins, The Winans Family, Rance Allen, Andra Crouch and Sandra Crouch all come out of the Church of God in Christ.

JONES: The Church of God in Christ is a warehouse, is a factory for creating and fashioning musicians who take the music industry by storm.

Can't nobody Do me like Jesus JORDAN: You have record companies and producers saying, "We want that sound..." The shouts, the choirs, and this sense of freedom and movement in their sound.

And he has my plan He's my friend JORDAN: Before you know it, gospel becomes an industry in a way that it had not been before.

Yeah My He's my Friend (rhythmic clapping) (theme music plays) (piano plays) You're my love and my prized possession GATES: Since the 1960s, California has been home to some of gospel's most innovative artists.

To understand the Golden State's pivotal role in the development of this music, I made a pilgrimage to Oakland's City of Refuge UCC, where I met gospel royalty... Lynette Hawkins-Stephens, Shirley Miller, and Bishop Yvette Flunder of the legendary Hawkins Family, the vanguard group that launched gospel to an unprecedented level of popularity.

(cheering) ANNOUNCER (over speaker): Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the great, the fabulous, the Edwin Hawkins Choir, y'all!

(cheering) CARPENTER: The evolution of contemporary gospel music really began with Edwin Hawkins, and the Hawkins family.

Jesus, lover of my soul Sent me to Thy bosom fly CARPENTER: There were people who flirted with it before, but their music did not become as popular.

My Savior hide, Savior hide GATES: Brothers Edwin and Walter Hawkins were raised in the COGIC Church, where no instrument was off limits.

Using electric bass and conga drums, Edwin modernized an old hymn, creating a bona fide hit.

In 1969, Oh Happy Day, would catapult this youth choir to stardom, taking gospel into a new era.

How did you come to join the Hawkins Singers, and what's your relationship to the Hawkins family?

HAWKINS-STEPHENS: I'm the baby of the family.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HAWKINS-STEPHENS: Yes.

But, one day he asked me to join after the choir dwindled down to basically family.

GATES: How about you Shirley?

MILLER: Well, I'm a first cousin, and Edwin asked me if I would become a part, and he wanted me to sing, in particular, Oh, Happy Day.

BISHOP FLUNDER: You know where it comes from?

The hymn?

Oh, happy day It sounds like the, a western.

GATES: Oh, it does.

MILLER: Yes.

Yes.

HAWKINS-STEPHENS: Yes.

When Jesus washed my sins away He taught me how BISHOP FLUNDER: It's pitiful.

But that was Edwin's gift.

He could take hymns and turn them into contemporary gospel songs, and he gave it the swing chorus.

It is the swing chorus that the world caught.

Oh, happy, oh, happy day Oh, happy, oh, happy day Then you can do whatever you want to do.

Oh, happy day, oh, happy day Can I get to heaven Oh, happy day I'm gonna tell the news Oh, happy day I'm gonna walk around Oh, happy day In my golden shoes Oh, happy day They tell me HADLEY: Oh, Happy Day, is a moment of revitalization for gospel for a younger generation, where they have made it in their own image.

Oh, happy day HADLEY: You listen to the drum on, Oh, Happy Day, and it's just this like gentle kind of backbeat that's propelling the song forward, and the choir... Oh, happy day HADLEY: The way they crescendo, and you hear that youthfulness and exuberance, just really creates an opening for gospel music for young people.

When we get to heaven Oh, happy day Ooh, happy day Day Mm, happy day, oh, happy day When Jesus was, when Jesus was GATES: Why has the family been so pivotal to the history of gospel music?

MILLER: My feeling is that it had to do what was going on in the world and society during that era.

It's the Vietnam War, you know, the racial divide in this country.

And I think that, Oh, Happy Day, just seemed to be something that people could grab hold of and wish for.

REPORTER (over TV): At 7:00 this evening, Martin Luther King was shot in Tennessee.

Martin Luther King, 20 minutes ago, died.

(screaming) HAROLD: Preachers wrestling with the post King world, trying to make sense of everything.

How do you politically explain what's happening, but how do you explain it as a person of faith?

GATES: In the wake of the assassination of Dr. King, the battle cry for justice and peace resounded more loudly than ever, along with the desperate search for the authentic voice of prophetic leadership.

I've always wanted to ask someone with your erudition; prophetic ministry.

REV.

HAYNES III: Mm GATES: Isn't all ministry prophetic?

REV.

HAYNES III: When I think of prophetic ministry, I think of that ministry that dares to speak truth to power.

It's literally the conscience of a nation trying to get that society to turn back to, you know, the God that created all of us.

Martin King often quoted the Amos 5: 24: "Let justice roll down his waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

So, you're talking about a prophetic witness is always going to aim toward justice.

TAYLOR: There is no hope for us in this world, until somehow by God's grace we contract this society in which we can live together.

GATES: One of those most powerful voices would be Dr. King's close friend and mentor, the eminent "Prince of Preachers," Dr. Gardner C. Taylor.

TAYLOR: And this strange, wide... GATES: Everybody talks to me about Gardner Taylor.

Is he the greatest of all time?

The GOAT?

REV.

HAYNES III: He's Muhammad Ali when it comes to preaching.

Gardner C. Taylor represents not just Black preaching, but preaching at its best, at its finest.

Here's someone who offers a prophetic social critique of what's going on, while at the same time empowering a community that was disempowered.

REV.

OTTIS III: Gardner C. Taylor.

He is one of the most extraordinary articulators of the gospel that anyone has probably ever heard.

Gardner Taylor's voice to me was like a combination of Sean Connery and James Earl Jones.

You know, it's, it's just amazing.

REV.

ALCANTARA: He didn't whoop, but that doesn't mean that you don't hear cadence, and meter, and rhythm.

You're hearing all of the different rules of music playing out even in a sermon that's not sung.

TAYLOR: In his own clothes, He lifted up every valley and brought down every mountain, made the crooked way straight, the rough places plain, pulled down the barrier.

Opened the highway... REV.

THOMAS: In His Own Clothes, is one of my absolute favorite sermons.

He connects the suffering of African American people with the experience of Jesus being degraded and ultimately crucified, and when Jesus comes to victory, we come to victory, because we've been so closely connected.

TAYLOR: And we shall be there to see him and to cry, "Thank you.

Thank you Jesus.

Thank you for every sorrow.

Thank you for every ache.

Thank you for every heartbreak.

Thank you for every cry.

Thank you.

Thank you."

(cheering) REV.

THOMAS: The experience of victory and hope that you have at the end of that sermon, it is so healing.

So powerful.

(cheering) FREDERICK: With King's passing, the need for a prophetic message did not die with him.

Gardner C. Taylor and many other ministers carried on that prophetic tradition of preaching.

REV.

ALCANTARA: The carriers of King's legacy, who want to, in many ways, turn up the volume because as they reflect, five years later, ten years later, 15 years later, 20 years later, the dream has not yet been realized.

(gunfire) (sirens blaring) GATES: Gardner C. Taylor's prophetic message spoke to the spiritual needs of African Americans, amidst massive social upheaval and political turmoil, as racial tensions became enflamed and a series of uprisings rippled across the nation.

Propelled by the Holy Spirit to fight injustice, gospel artists like Rance Allen and the Staple Singers joined a concert commemorating the seventh anniversary of the Watts Rebellion, spreading a message of truth and justice to a crowd of thousands.

REV.

JACKSON (over speaker): Today, we are unified and on well-accord.

Because when we are together, we've got power.

Today on this program you will hear gospel and rhythm and blues and jazz.

(applause) COHEN: In the late '60's, early 1970's, many gospel performers and R&B performers performed side by side on such festivals as the one captured in Wattstax.

It showed how much gospel music was intertwined with protest music, and there was certain militancy that was coming up in gospel performers.

MAN: We're here to commemorate a revolution.

COOPER: They're there to commemorate the riots at, in Watts in 1965.

JOHNSON: And they're singing to experiences around oppression and also what's going on, on the day-to-day actual scene.

NEAL: The music seems to take up the space of Black politics.

You been lyin' on the truth I'm gonna tell it like it is You been lyin' on the truth, yeah NEAL: Rance Allen has this incredible performance at Wattstax.

It's one of the more important moments.

Got to bring the truth to light Tell the truth on our equal rights Yeah You been lyin' on the truth COHEN: Rance Allen Group performing, Lying on the Truth, was their view of how Black history is not being treated with the respect that it deserves.

Don't you know, you been lyin' COHEN: They were using gospel and this gospel funk to spread that message.

Hey COOPER: It sounds like church, but it's speaking truth to power.

Don't you know, you been lyin' on the truth I'm gonna tell it like it is, now COHEN: And so, there was that response to the Civil Rights Movement that came from gospel musicians addressing themes that also left an important legacy on soul music.

(applause) I I'm so in love with you, ah Whatever you want to do GATES: As gospel artists addressed injustice, a wave of other singers, among them, Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Patti Labelle, Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green, created a secular sound that grew out of their own roots in the church.

It was aptly named, "Soul."

Spend my life with you REV.

MOSS III: Soul music is music that has a direct line, a through line, to the church tradition.

Marvin Gaye got his training in church.

Sam Cooke got his training in church.

Aretha got her training in church.

Don't play that song for me HADLEY: Aretha Franklin, she is the Queen of Soul, and we see Aretha Franklin as the Queen of Soul in part because people heard church in what she was doing.

Oh, darling Darling Baby, why did you have to lie FRANKLIN: When I started in the, the choir at my father's church, New Bethel Baptist Church, and from the choir I became a soloist along with the choir.

COHEN: She also learned all of the lessons of performing on the gospel circuit working with Clara Ward and Mahalia Jackson.

She had sung jazz so she knew all of the tricks of improvisation.

JORDAN: As she goes into the secular world, her father is saying, "I'm not going to just leave her alone.

I'm going to encourage it.

I'm going to champion it.

I'm gonna celebrate it."

NEAL: At her peak, in the late '60s and early 1970s, she single-handedly helped to introduce the Black gospel impulse to mainstream America.

They didn't know they were listening to gospel music, right, because she didn't call it that.

It was soul music.

GATES: In 1972, five years after, Respect, reached number one on the billboard charts, Aretha returned to her roots, recording a live gospel album, Amazing Grace, at New Temple Church in Los Angeles.

NEAL: It's a Black church, you know, folks are sitting tight together.

And the stars are in the room.

The great legendary Clara Ward shows up, almost playing first lady to Reverend C.L.

Mick Jagger is in the room also, right?

And to get that choir there, the best choir director in the world, James Cleveland, her long friend and mentor.

CLEVELAND: My sister, Miss Aretha Franklin.

Give her a big hand.

(applause) COHEN: She goes back to her roots in the church, and that was a big deal.

Some people had felt that she had lost her faith when she left the church.

But she always insisted that she never lost her faith.

She never lost her ties to the church.

So when she records, Amazing Grace, she was engaging directly with her congregation.

A... Amaze... Zing... Amazing grace REV.

BARRON: In the, Amazing Grace album, she is pulling on the vocal aesthetics of gospel music.

It was grace REV.

BARRON: Which include the improvisation, the riffing, the timbre... Amazing REV.

BARRON: That conveys urgency and weightiness.

That's been with me, Lord OWENS: You feel it, deep down in your soul and you can't just listen to it.

It emits something from you, either, uh, it, it makes you want to cry, it makes you want to shout, it makes you want to sing, and it's all coming out of Aretha.

And you know it's genuine.

CORBETT: Mm-hmm.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ohh (applause) COHEN: Aretha Franklin also created a fascinating mixture of songs on this album.

Precious memories COHEN: She combines gospel songs from an earlier generation, but she also brings in contemporary popular songs, and she brings out the religious feeling in them, in the way she sings, in the way they're arranged.

BEST: And what does she choose, as a part of that repertoire?

Wholy Holy, by Marvin Gaye.

Wholy holy Come together Wholy holy Ooh Ooh Wholy holy NEAL: She doesn't cover, What's Going On, right?

She doesn't cover, Inner City Blues.

She covers, Wholy Holy, an obscure song.

Come together, wholy BEST: I think she did that on purpose because she knew the perceived conflation of the secular and the sacred, and a song that's calling for peace and love from Marvin Gaye sung by Aretha Franklin.

NEAL: And she takes it to a whole another level that I think Marvin Gaye couldn't even imagine for it.

COHEN: The way she sang, it was very different.

Do you know that we can Rock the world's foundation COHEN: It is so pronounced that there's no mistaking that Aretha Franklin's talking about her people coming together in this era after the passing of Dr. King.

Wholy holy Holy GATES: Why do you think, Amazing Grace, was Aretha's greatest selling album?

OWENS: Her voice, um, you can feel the spirit coming out of Aretha.

People who talked about her transfer from gospel music to secular music.

Gospel never left her.

It was in her.

It was who she was.

CORBETT: And that's what she said.

OWENS: In any song you listen to... CORBETT: You know, "The church is in me."

GATES: Right.

OWENS: Yeah.

GATES: The Amazing Grace, album would go double platinum and earn Aretha a Grammy.

To this day, it is the best-selling live gospel album of all time.

Precious Lord Precious Lord, call Thy name Take my hand, and you know Lead me on, wherever you are Let me stand He will be there I got tired I'm weak GATES: Aretha's electrifying blend of gospel, soul, and R&B, inspired other children of the church to experiment with this sound as well.

JOHNSON: When we get into that '70s and '80s, you see people start to incorporate disco sounds, and so you have a danceable gospel.

It's literally the explosion and the expansion of the gospel beyond church spaces.

GATES: One of the best examples of this kind of sonic fusion is the Clark Sisters hit, You Brought the Sunshine.

You brought the sunshine You brought the sunshine In my life You are the lifeline NEAL: When I heard The Clark Sisters, it was listening to the WBLS in New York City, and wondering what this was I was hearing on the radio, and folks telling me this is gospel music, and I'm going, no, it ain't.

This, this is something else.

Sunshine in my life Oh, ooh REV.

PIERCE: The Clark Sisters are this phenomenal family of preachers and singers who come out of the holiness Pentecostal tradition.

They sing about the Holy Spirit, but they have this kind of crossover appeal because the music sounds a lot like the R&B music of its day.

HAROLD: You Brought the Sunshine, it samples heavily from Stevie Wonder's, Master Blaster.

It also has a rhythm, a sort of soul, reggae, tinged rhythm that people were very familiar with, but it's explicitly about Jesus, you know, "I'm a witness that Jesus brought the sunshine."

You gave me peace CLARK: I heard, Master Blaster... (vocalizing) GATES: Yeah.

CLARK: I said, "Nobody's done reggae with gospel."

I said, "I'm going to try it."

And I came up with this.

(organ plays).

That reggae beat.

GATES: Yeah!

(organ plays).

CLARK: And, I didn't realize though that it was gonna crossover.

They started playing it in the bars, in the clubs, and oh, we got so much criticism.

GATES: Did that hurt?

CLARK: It hurt us, but we knew God was in it.

It was God's way of, um, taking us to another level.

We were reaching people that wouldn't go to church.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

CLARK: Some people gave us their testimony that they used to go to clubs and now they go to church.

GATES: You gotta go where the people are.

CLARK: That's right.

Lord make us holy Lord, won't you please GATES: The genius of Jacky, Denise, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen, propelled gospel to new heights, making the Clark Sisters the best-selling female gospel group of all time.

But this would not be possible without their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, whose musical roots also ran deep in the Church of God in Christ, the group developed a unique harmony that elevated the gospel sound.

DAY: The COGIC sound of the '70s and '80s was the Hawkins Singers, Andra Crouch, the Winans, but I would be remiss if I did not first speak of Mattie Moss Clark.

REV.

SHELLEY: Dr. Mattie Moss Clark is a legend.

She becomes really important in building the choral aspect of the Church of God in Christ music department.

Many are the afflictions Of the righteous DAY: What is significant about Mattie Moss Clark is her impact and utter transformation of gospel music.

We have the two-part harmony, and she changed it to the three-part harmony, that would become in some ways, the distinctive COGIC sound, and of course of the broader sort of gospel music sound.

He will deliver you CASSELBERRY: And she trained the Clark Sisters not only to hear what she heard, but to be able to deliver what she heard.

Mm, my mind is made up I'm on my way up I'm gonna hold my head up Going on with the Lord Ooh My mind is made up I'm on my way up Ooh Gonna hold my head up Going on, going on with the Lord I'm going with Jesus CASSELBERRY: The Clark Sisters really changed the structure and the sound of women singing in an ensemble.

Going on with the Lord I don't need no CASSELBERRY: They introduced new ways of thinking about how the voices fit together, thinking about like chord structures and then on top of it, each of them individually is so talented.

Going on Going on with the Lord JORDAN: They start to take on a character that almost sounds like the organ itself.

Is my living in vain Is my giving in vain JORDAN: The riffing that they're able to do, no one's heard this before.

This is a whole new level.

Is my giving in vain JORDAN: And the Clark Sisters push that forward, especially Twinkie Clark.

Is my praying in vain DAY: As Mattie Moss Clark was beginning her own ministry as Minister of Music under the Church of God in Christ, Twinkie becomes the mastermind.

She becomes the brainchild and becomes as significant to the artistic creation and cultivation of the Clark Sisters.

Is my playing the organ in vain No HAIRSTON: The thing about Twinkie was she gave room for a very unique performance, and the way her sisters handled the vocalization and, and just the, the movement of their voices.

No No, no Of course not No, no, no, hey, hey, hey No HAIRSTON: There was some kinda relationship that Twinkie had not only with the instrument, but with the vocals.

Kind of a, a intertwining.

Vain, vain, vain, vain CLARK: Is My Living in Vain, has like a bluesy sound, Gain CLARK: And what I would do is take each sister depending upon their style and their feel of singing and have them do a line.

Is my living in vain All that's bluesy.

GATES: Yeah, absolutely.

Is my giving in vain CLARK: And I would give each sister a line.

Is my praying in vain CLARK: See, so, it has that bluesy sound... GATES: Yeah, it does!

CLARK: But it's still gospel.

GATES: Yeah, clearly.

And I love the blues but I can hear it right away.

(laughter).

HAROLD: Twinkie Clark is doing some amazing things, not just with the sisters, but also as a solo artist.

It's the rhythm.

It's the sound.

LAWRENCE: My Soul Loves Jesus, the arc of the song, it's just incredible.

My soul Loves Jesus My soul LAWRENCE: I loved the way she painted the picture about her relationship with God, and then the symphonic, and starts this place, and by the end, the vocals were all there.

And all of a sudden, they just kind of drift away and it's just piano.

You can hear what's happening with her and Howard from her classical stuff that she's starting to do now.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

And in my soul, my soul LAWRENCE: So it's almost like, she's singing it, and now it's transferring into her hands to play the same idea of how she's feeling.

My soul (organ plays) GATES: Bravo, bravo.

That's great.

CLARK: That's for you.

GATES: Thank you.

Building on her deep COGIC roots in Detroit, Twinkie Clark blended influences from the worlds of classical music, the blues, and jazz.

Oh Just like He said He would Just like He said He would GATES: Around the same time, another artist with COGIC roots crafted a signature sound that transcended his own hometown of Los Angeles, crossing borders of denomination, genre, and nationality.

In the twinklin' In the twinkling of an eye Ooh, yeah, I said a twinklin' JOHNSON: Andra Crouch was born and raised in California.

He actually went to the same high school as Ritchie Valens, the guy who gave us, La Bamba, and so a very multicultural background.

COOPER: But he comes out of this Jesus Movement of the 1970s as well.

JOHNSON: The Jesus Movement, or the Jesus People Movement, had young kind of hippie Christians trying to find their own sound.

COOPER: And it was this really integrated movement of folk galvanizing around the gospel.

You know the joy of the Lord was so wonderful That I wanted a little bit more Oh, yes, so I got down on HAROLD: He becomes a key figure and leader in that movement, and his music, uh, very much shapes that culture.

In the bottom of my soul COOPER: His ability to produce, I call it, "world music," gospel music for the world, is a result of all of these religious, cultural, and artistic experiences that he had growing up in California.

JOHNSON: There's no one Andra Crouch sound.

He gave you a range of things, and so he emerges in the '60 and '70s as this multiple talented composer.

Soon and very soon We are going to see the king Soon and very soon We are going to see the king NEAL: He really did draw from Thomas Dorsey.

"I'm going to write some very, very, very good and extraordinary songs," right?

"I'm going to make sure to push stuff out."

Hallelujah NEAL: And so, Soon and Very Soon, becomes standard from that moment.

Hallelujah, hallelujah We're going to see the king Oh, hallelujah Ooh GATES: And I love this.

Look at this.

DARDEN: Yeah.

GATES: He's in Jamaica.

You know, in Trinidad.

DARDEN: And again, nobody did anything like that.

Didn't put crosses and Jesus on the cover.

GATES: No.

DARDEN: He wanted this message, you know, Black and White, but not just certain kind of Black churches, but all.

Hallelujah DARDEN: So, a couple things interesting there.

Andra comes and not just gets involved with Jesus music and contemporary Christian but changing Black gospel, he's also for the first time we hear what we're gonna call praise and worship music through the Black idiom.

It works as a pop song, it works as a gospel song, so while he is COGIC to the core, and he continues to draw from that tradition.

He also is wanting to make sure the Baptists can dig it, Catholics can do it, Methodists, apostolic... GATES: He's from a sacred music dynasty.

Oh, the blood That Jesus That He shed for me HAIRSTON: Andra Crouch represents a departure from the traditional gospel sound.

Raised in the Church of God in Christ, but heard something different in his heart, in his spirit, and dared to do it.

He dared to be different.

I know that He reaches To the highest To the highest mountain HAIRSTON: And so, Andra helped to create the crossover between contemporary Christian music and gospel music.

He represented a new sound that both Black and White could appreciate and could perform.

JOHNSON: Andra Crouch would say, "Take the message everywhere," and that, that meant everywhere.

Right now God is moving by your spirit Right now Like the wind, if you listen you will hear it Right now If we never needed God before we need him now, now We do, we really do Yeah, we do, right now Now is a vain exhibition Right now, my God speaks to every nation Right now HAZZARD: White people loved him.

And that's what made him an international star.

We went to Sweden, we went to Australia, we went to Korea, we went to Japan.

DARDEN: He toured voraciously doing 40 dates and 42 nights in the South Pacific.

He would play anywhere at any time.

He felt the compulsion to spread the word.

You can receive it, right now Right now (applause) MAROVICH: He starts to minister to crowds that maybe never listened to gospel music before.

JOHNSON: That's when we see him partnering with Michael Jackson to do, Man in the Mirror, or him with Madonna doing, Like a Prayer.

Just like a prayer, I'll take you there It's like a dream to me WOMAN: What made it a hit?

HAZZARD: Us.

It was what we were singing.

"Just like a prayer, what?

I'll take you there."

Like a prayer, I'll take you there I'll take you there Just like a dream to me JOHNSON: Andra Crouch is now a part of this media culture of the '80s.

God is tryin' to tell you something Hear you Lord, Lord JOHNSON: He had his hand in also the film and television industry.

Quincy Jones is over at the Color Purple project.

So he knows to call Andra Crouch.

Everyone knows, want to do choirs in L.A., call Andra.

God is tryin' to tell you something Speak to me, Lord Maybe God is tryin' tell you something Right now, right now, right now HAIRSTON: For this reason, Andra Crouch was totally ostracized by the traditional gospel community.

HAZZARD: He got some pushback because you singing Devil's music and things like that.

But Andra said, "How are we going to reach them?

We have the light, we've got to go to the darkness."

JOHNSON: By being in these spaces with Hollywood, he saw that as a evangelistic type of opportunity, how we can reach more people.

Remember how God delivered The children DARDEN: There wouldn't have been a Winans without him.

There wouldn't have been a Kirk Franklin.

There wouldn't have been a Donald Lawrence.

There wouldn't have been a Jonathan McReynolds without an Andra Crouch that continues the original goal of Thomas Dorsey to send this music to the world.

Mary, don't you weep Mary, don't you weep GATES: The genius of Andra Crouch's music spoke to audiences throughout the world.

Wait a minute Told you not to mourn Now realize that we don't have enough time To tell you the story, hey GATES: Back home, Shirley Caesar reigned as the queen of a short form of preaching called, "The sermonette."

By shrouding the sermon within a song, Caesar managed to preach in plain sight, when it was still rare for women to be given access to the pulpit.

It's gonna be all right HADLEY: The church that we grew up in did not allow women preachers, but my grandmother and I would listen to Shirley Caesar deliver sermonettes together, and Shirley Caesar is one of the most skilled people at preaching, male or female; living, dead.

She's just brilliant at it.

And as a kid, I would go see Shirley Caesar in concert when she came to my town.

Like, I'm ten years old talking about, "Can we go see Shirley Caesar, please?"

CAESAR: My sister's little boy, came into the kitchen one evening while she was fixing supper.

And he handed her a piece of paper that he had been writing on, and after she wiped her hands on her apron, she takes his letter in her hand and she, began to read it.

And this is what it said.

For the nine months I carried you Come on, Mike.

Growing inside me No charge For the nights I sat up with you I doctored and prayed for you REV.

PIERCE: For a very long time, Black women have found agency and power and an ability to tell their story and worship God as singers, if they haven't been allowed to preach.

Through the years REV.

PIERCE: Now, some have always done both: like Reverend Shirley Caesar.

The tears And the cost Through the years REV.

MOSS III: Shirley Caesar is an example of women saying, "Close the door?

Oh, I'm going to find the window, and I'm coming in here to preach."

Add it all up The real cost of my love is No charge CAESAR: All right, that's it.

GATES: Ah!

That is great!

Were there people reluctant to let a woman emerge as a leader, uh, in your experience?

CAESAR: God had called me to preach... (sighs) It was the church that stood against me.

GATES: Really?

CAESAR: Yes, they said, "God don't call women to preach."

I said, "Well you didn't, either."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

CAESAR: I said, "If God could trust a woman to carry his living word, then he can use us to carry the written word."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

God don't want, he don't want no No coward soldier He don't need, no coward soldier REV.

GILKES: The Reverend Pastor Shirley Caesar is tied to the classical tradition of gospel music by way of The Caravans.

No coward soldier God can't use, no coward soldier REV.

GILKES: Who, in the 1950s, not only carried gospel music around the country, but sent out these great, wonderful soloists; James Cleveland, Dorothy Norwood, and Shirley Caesar, who came out preaching her way into a song.

And I heard that old no good son say And he's talking to somebody here God gave you, ah, your mama Don't you drive her away Yes He did Oh, God gave You a mama, don't drive her away REV.

WALTON: Shirley Caesar was literally born into the best of the Black musical tradition.

I mean, her father was a very famous quartet singer, and she was part of the Holiness Church in a neighborhood that was flourishing in mid-20th century, in Durham.

She just came out of this, you know, creative space that really just propelled and launched her career.

Who's going up Oh, who's going up Who's going up Who's going up Who's going up to meet the Lord Ooh, yes HAROLD: As a recording artist, Shirley Caesar has been at the cutting edge of gospel music.

And she has followed no rules except her own.

Every nation, on their way HADLEY: She painted pictures with her words.

You felt like you saw everything she described.

HAROLD: And, she is an amazing performer who has this ability to take her audience to another place.

We going up to meet the Lord To meet the Lord Hallelujah CAESAR: I would take my experiences and I would put it to music because I knew that just as sure as we're sitting here, that somebody else was experiencing some of the things that I was or either things that I'd gone through with.

That's my kind of gospel.

HAROLD: In 1987, she recorded one of the greatest albums...

Ever.

One of my favorites; Live in Chicago.

And it has the sermonette about, Shoutin' John, Hold My Mule.

(cheering) I want to tell you a little story now About a man Called Shoutin' John (cheering) DAY: Shoutin' John is an 86-year-old man who is about to be put out of a church by the church leaders.

He came in dancin' FREDERICK: They tell him, "You can't do all that dancing in our church," right.

Because they are upper class, more established, respectable church.

DAY: And Shoutin' John tells them, you know, all the things that God has done for him.

And they still say, "No, Shoutin' John, if you don't stop shoutin' we are not going to allow you to come back to the church."

And Shoutin' John says... He said, listen brother deacon If I can't shout in your church He said, hold my mule I'm gonna shout it right now Said glory REV.

WALTON: Shirley Caesar declared that there is inherent dignity in this man who they couldn't silence.

Hold my mule REV.

WALTON: She made folks believe and know that not only that I got a feeling that everything is going to be all right, guess what?

I know I'm all right.

And she's willing to affirm and shine the light on folk who have come through something.

And so it's through the song and it's through the testimony that women like Shirley Caesar were able to give deep profound moving sermons that would rival and in many cases far surpass anything that the boys are doing.

GATES: In 1990, Shirley Caesar became an ordained pastor at Mount Calvary Word of Faith Church, where she continues to preach today.

Although women continued to push for representation in the pulpit that reflected their representation in the pews, the rise of television ministries would be dominated by men, who use the medium to expand the size of their congregations to unimaginable numbers.

Sunday worship over the internet, however, dramatically leveled the playing field, as more and more Black women pastors employed the new technology to grow their congregations.

Oh GATES: With the influence of hip-hop and praise and worship, the gospel sound in the years to come, will experience one of its most dramatic shifts in style, a change that, like key innovations before, will not be without its controversy.

How can it be GATES: And while the homegoing's of gospel giants Thomas A. Dorsey, Sallie Martin, and James Cleveland marked the end of an era, a new generation of artists will join forces with record producers to push the industry into the platinum era.

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Oh let it be Dear Lord let it be