Traditional Gospel

Traditional gospel is the foundational style of African American gospel music, formed in Black churches of the United States from the 1930s by *Thomas A. Dorsey*, who fused blues and ragtime piano with sanctified hymn texts. It centres on massed choirs, close-harmony quartets and a testifying lead singer, accompanied by piano, guitar and handclaps, in songs of praise, deliverance and testimony meant for worship rather than entertainment. Recorded by *Mahalia Jackson*, *Sister Rosetta Tharpe*, the *Soul Stirrers* and the great quartets, it supplied the vocal vocabulary of soul and rhythm and blues while remaining rooted in the church.