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Healing for the soul : Richard Smallwood, the vamp, and the gospel imagination / Braxton D. Shelley.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Shelley, Braxton D., author.
- Series:
- AMS studies in music.
- Oxford scholarship online.
- AMS studies in music
- Oxford scholarship online
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Gospel music--History and criticism.
- Gospel music.
- Church music--African American churches.
- Church music.
- Gospel music--Analysis, appreciation.
- Smallwood, Richard.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (356 pages) : illustrations (black and white).
- Place of Publication:
- New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2021]
- Summary:
- Between the first & last words of a Black gospel song, musical sound acquires spiritual power. During this unfolding, a variety of techniques facilitate musical & physical transformation. The most important of these is a repetitive musical cycle known by names including the run, the drive, the special, & the vamp. Through its combination of reiteration & intensification, the vamp turns song lyrics into something more potent. While many musical traditions use vamps to fill space, or occupy time in preparation for another, more important event, in gospel, vamps are the main event. Why is the vamp so central to the Black gospel tradition? What work does the gospel vamp do? What does the vamp reveal about the transformative power of Black gospel more broadly? This book explores the vamp's essential place in Black gospel song, arguing that these climactic musical cycles turn worship services into transcendent events.
- Contents:
- Reimagining Gospel : An Introduction
- "A Balm In Gilead" : "Tuning Up" and the Gospel Imagination
- The Moment That Changed Everything : Gospel Music and the Incarnation of Time
- "The Evidence of Things Not Seen" : Gospel Vamps and the Incarnation of Text
- The Pursuit of Intensity : A Formal Theory of the Gospel Vamp.
- Notes:
- Also issued in print: 2021.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on print version record.
- ISBN:
- 0-19-756648-0
- 0-19-756649-9
- 0-19-756647-2
- OCLC:
- 1226073565
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