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The Gospel Truth - Scottish Roots?


Mike

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Found the Channel 4 UK TV programme "The Gospel Truth" an interesting hour's viewing last night.

If missed it, the documentary investigated a theory that the origins of Gospel Music can be traced back to the Scottish Presbyterian music.

Channel 4 web site has an article on the subject, a short clip below

The Gospel Truth

Writer: Mike Gerber

Unless you're a vinyl junky, the discs you spin on your hi-fi these days are no longer black, yet in a musical sense many probably are. Because if you listen to any jazz, blues, hip-hop, soul, funk, disco, gospel, rock, what's turning you on is strongly rooted in African-American music.

African American culture has also impacted on country and folk music, klezmer, the Broadway show-song, classical composition, Latin American, African and Caribbean music. Not to mention literature, painting, architecture, interior design, the clothes we wear, the way we speak, our way of life.

What though do you mean by African-American music? Think you know? Channel 4's documentary The Gospel Truth might shake any complacent assumptions. It argues that there are strong links between Scottish Presbyterian music and the gospel music heard in Black churches.

We learn that Highland Scots were slave owners in the Southern States of America from 1740s onwards and slaves brought over from west Africa took on some of their owners' cultural and religious practices.

https://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites...n/features.html

Follow the link above for the full article on the Channel 4 website, though rather than focus on the documentary, it is more of an afterword article.

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