Woke Me Up This Morning: Black Gospel Singers and the Gospel Life

4. On the Air

4 ON THE AIR "You've got to talk to the disc jockey. . .' Radio has played—and still plays—an important role in the gospel music story. Since the 19205, preachers, choirs, soloists, and quartets have made broadcasts with the dual purpose of spreading the message and promoting "in person" appearances. The development in the 19605 of tightly focused radio stations aiming for specific audiences led to the establishment of gospel broadcasting, and, today, virtually every city with a significant African-Americanpopulation has at least one gospel station. Memphis, in the heart of the "Bible belt," has five for a population of about nine hundred thousand (other city stations also have occasional gospel programming, especially on Sundays). Gospel broadcasting is particularly well established in the South, and it is possible to drive from Memphis to New Orleans without ever being out of range of a religious station. Some are powerful, transmitting at up to fifty thousand watts and covering multistate areas; many more transmit at much lower power, covering as little as a twenty-mile radius around the transmitter. Some transmit twenty-four hours a day,while others run only during daylight hours. Though an increasing number are using the FMband, most of the major ones are on AM.All are vital links in the gospel community. Programmingisbasic and issimilar on allstations.Amixtureofmusic and church services,with advertisementsusuallyrunning at alower ratio than on secular stations, isthe staple diet ofthe gospel radio listener. The 142 ON T H E A I R music covers a wide spectrum, from recordings by the great quartets and soloists of the 19508 to the latest choir offerings. Since the aim is to reflect public taste, in the 19908, choir recordings dominate. But programmers know that all types of gospel music have their devotees, and all tastes must be satisfied. "Maybe I'll play one record that you don't like, but then the next one you'll like," sums up veteran gospel DJ EarlyWright of WROX in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Interspersed with the music are church services, sermons, in-studio speakers and other features related to religion. Some church broadcasts are syndicated, so that, for instance, listeners in rural Tennessee can be listening to a recording of a service in Chicago, but many come from local churches. Some are broadcast "live"; more often, they are taped and played later, often during time paid for by the church. Editing tends to be minimal, and when the time allocated for a service comes to an end, so does the broadcast, even if the preacher is in mid-sermon. The most distinctive characteristic of gospel radio is its ties with the community that listens to it. Disk jockeys appear as emcees on local programs and anniversaries. Stations run "community noticeboards" to publicize local church and religious events. DJs dedicate songs to regular listeners. And gospel artists can get their music played on their local stations. Many of these recordings are self-financed and produced by the artists, and an airing over the local station is the only broadcast exposure they will get. Sometimes a hometown record will catch the ears of listeners and produce a local hit. It happened to the Spirit of Memphis with its 1987recording of "Happy in the Service of the Lord";1 in 1992, the Brown Singers of Memphis had a success with their version of the standard "Jesus Is on the Main Line."2 The use of local talent has been a hallmark of gospel radio since its beginnings. In the early days of broadcasting, much of the music transmitted was performed "live" in the studio, and radio stations provided an outlet for a wide range of community talent, including dance bands, comedians, and "hillbilly" musicians (especiallyin the South). The exact date of the first gospel broadcast has not been pinpointed, but, by 1926, the Eva Jessye Choir, a professional choral group from New York, was appearing on syndicated radio shows singing its formal arrangements of spirituals.3 One of the first quartets to appear on air—certainly the first on a nationally syndicated program—was the university-based Utica Jubilee Quartet, from Mississippi. The group moved to New York in 1926, and in 1927 secured a regular half-hour program over the NBC On the Air 143 network based on WJZ-NewYork, performing spirituals, jubilee songs, and hymns, as well as some secular material.* Gospel historian Kip Lornell points to the...