A01=Ryan P. Harper
African-American
American evangelicalism
American Religion
American South
American studies
Author_Ryan P. Harper
Bill Gaither
Category=AVLK
Category=AVN
Category=AVP
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
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eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Ethnography
Evangelical theology
Evangelical women
Evangelicalism
Evangelicals and politics
Gaither
Gaither Vocal Band
Gloria Gaither
Gospel
Guy Penrod
Homecoming
Lynda Randle
Masculinity
music
popular culture
Promise keepers
Race
Religion and Memory
Religious Right
Televangelism
Product details
- ISBN 9781496810908
- Weight: 679g
- Dimensions: 155 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 30 Apr 2017
- Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In The Gaithers and Southern Gospel, Ryan P. Harper examines songwriters Bill and Gloria Gaither’s Homecoming video and concert series—a gospel music franchise that, since its beginning in 1991, has outperformed all Christian and much secular popular music on the American music market.
The Homecomings represent “southern gospel.” Typically that means a musical style popular among white evangelical Christians in the American South and Midwest, and it sometimes overlaps in style, theme, and audience with country music. The Homecomings’ nostalgic orientation—their celebration of “traditional” kinds of American Christian life—harmonize well with southern gospel music, past and present. But amidst the backward gazes, the Homecomings also portend and manifest change. The Gaithers’ deliberate racial integration of their stages, their careful articulation of a relatively inclusive evangelical theology, and their experiments with an array of musical forms demonstrate that the Homecoming is neither simplistically nostalgic, nor solely “southern.”
Harper reveals how the Gaithers negotiate a tension between traditional and changing community norms as they seek simultaneously to maintain and expand their audience as well as to initiate and respond to shifts within their fan base. Pulling from hisfield work at Homecoming concerts, behind the scenes with the Gaithers, and with numerous Homecoming fans, Harper reveals the Homecoming world to be a dynamic, complicated constellation in the formation of American religious identity.
The Homecomings represent “southern gospel.” Typically that means a musical style popular among white evangelical Christians in the American South and Midwest, and it sometimes overlaps in style, theme, and audience with country music. The Homecomings’ nostalgic orientation—their celebration of “traditional” kinds of American Christian life—harmonize well with southern gospel music, past and present. But amidst the backward gazes, the Homecomings also portend and manifest change. The Gaithers’ deliberate racial integration of their stages, their careful articulation of a relatively inclusive evangelical theology, and their experiments with an array of musical forms demonstrate that the Homecoming is neither simplistically nostalgic, nor solely “southern.”
Harper reveals how the Gaithers negotiate a tension between traditional and changing community norms as they seek simultaneously to maintain and expand their audience as well as to initiate and respond to shifts within their fan base. Pulling from hisfield work at Homecoming concerts, behind the scenes with the Gaithers, and with numerous Homecoming fans, Harper reveals the Homecoming world to be a dynamic, complicated constellation in the formation of American religious identity.
Ryan P. Harper, New York, New York, is visiting assistant professor in New York University’s Religious Studies Program.
