54 albums · 1909–2023

Gospel, from the spirituals and the quartets to Mahalia Jackson, Amazing Grace, Kirk Franklin and today

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

Mahalia Jackson in a white dress with a corsage, smiling as she sings before two microphones, in a black and white photograph
Sister Rosetta Tharpe singing with her head thrown back and her mouth wide open, close to a microphone, in a black and white photographSingers of the Soweto Gospel Choir in bright patterned costumes singing and clapping on an outdoor stage under trees
Mahalia Jackson singing in the Irenehal in Utrecht, May 1964. Photo: Hugo van Gelderen, Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Sister Rosetta Tharpe at the Helsinki Jazz Festival in 1964. Photo: Kalervo Manninen, Finnish Heritage Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · The Soweto Gospel Choir at WOMADelaide in Adelaide, March 2013. Photo: Michael Coghlan, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Gospel grew out of the spirituals sung by enslaved people in the American South, which the Fisk Jubilee Singers took to concert halls from 1871. In the Black Baptist and Pentecostal churches of the early twentieth century it met the blues and ragtime, and in Chicago in the early 1930s Thomas A. Dorsey wrote the songs that gave it its name. Quartets sang it without instruments, women singers and choirs with piano and organ, and from the forties records and radio carried it across America.

The list begins with the Fisk Jubilee Singers' recordings of 1909, Blind Willie Johnson and the Golden Gate Quartet. Then come Sister Rosetta Tharpe with her electric guitar, Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward and the Caravans, and the quartets: the Soul Stirrers with Sam Cooke, the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Swan Silvertones. James Cleveland led the large choirs, the Staple Singers sang for the civil rights movement, and in 1969 the Edwin Hawkins Singers had a hit with "Oh Happy Day". Aretha Franklin recorded Amazing Grace with Cleveland in a Los Angeles church in 1972. Contemporary gospel follows with Andraé Crouch, Walter Hawkins, the Winans, the Clark Sisters, Take 6, BeBe and CeCe Winans, Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams and Mary Mary, and later Kierra Sheard, Tasha Cobbs, Sunday Service Choir and Maverick City Music. From South Africa come Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Rebecca Malope, Joyous Celebration and the Soweto Gospel Choir, and from Britain the London Community Gospel Choir, Lurine Cato, the Kingdom Choir and Guvna B.

The list has 54 records from 1909 to 2023. It leaves out most of the singles on which the early singers and quartets were first heard, white Southern gospel beyond Elvis Presley, Christian rock and most worship music, the gospel of Nigeria, Ghana and the Caribbean, and the albums Deezer does not have, among them God's Property's album with Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin's first album. About 48 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Soul & R&B 80%Blues 2%Jazz 2%Other 16%
  • Soul & R&B 80%
  • Blues 2%
  • Jazz 2%
  • Other 16%

The genres named most: gospel, contemporary gospel, soul, choir, praise & worship, south african gospel.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 3 countries: United States 40, United Kingdom 5, South Africa 4. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1900s

The 1920s

The 1930s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Genres first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.