HUM 223: Roots of gospel, 'lining out,' call and response

From a British video "THE STORY OF GOSPEL: THE POWER OF THE VOICE" (1998) an exploration of how African American gospel differed from the music of white Scots-Irish people and how it got over ...


White vernacular singing wasn't as precise as perhaps the video makes it out to be. Compare the singing of Appalachian whites in an Old Regular Baptist congregation ("Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah") with an African American congregation in the Sea Islands of Georgia ("Sheep, Sheep, Don't You Know the Road"):


Footnote: Cherokee Indian tradition holds that "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" was one of the songs the Cherokee people sang on the Trail of Tears.