Musicologist Discovers Roots of Gospel Music

[arisbe]

"It makes sense that as we got our names from the slave masters, we carried the slave owners blood, their religion and their customs, that we should have adopted and adapted their music. There are more descendants of Highland Scots living in America than there are in the Highlands - and a great many of them are black.

"I have been to Africa many times in search of my cultural identity, but it was in the Highlands that I found the cultural roots of black America."

-- Professor Willie Ruff, Yale University

Comments

[amade.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

And most southern folk/country/western is from the Irish/Scottish traditions, as well.

Much of the art song written by black composers of the late 19th and the early 20th century almost directly reflects the art song composed by those of Irish/Scottish influence.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I had always heard that gospel was a mixture of African and American elements, rather than pure African. This article says that the "American" part is largely Scottish, which figures, given the cultural and ethnic makeup of the 19th century white South. This was a culture that believed it was living in a Sir Walter Scott novel.

Demotic American has always been an interchange between white and black cultures, underground if necessary. Sex wasn't the only thing people snuck across town for.

[swissarmyknife.livejournal.com]

now i understand why samuel l. jackson was wearing a kilt and inheriting a castle in scotland in that movie i cannot remember the name...

[pinque.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Amazing Grace... written after a Scots slave trader got a conscience... to make a soundbite out of a rather bigger event...