- Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

Today we are continuing our series on the Black church in Detroit, which is produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

June is Black Music Month, and it can be argued that no musical culture has been as influential on the modern world as African American music.

It's a tradition that is rooted in the old spirituals and gospel music of the Black church.

Joining me now to talk about the history, the evolution, and the influence of African American religious music is Dr. Deborah Smith Pollard.

She is a gospel radio host on Mix 92.3 FM and a Professor Emerita at the University of Michigan Dearborn, along with Dr. Brandon Waddles, who's an Assistant Music Professor at Wayne State University.

And he's currently on tour with "The Wiz" as Associate Music Director.

Welcome both of you to the show.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, yeah, so as I said, there in the open, Black music is American music, and so much of that is true because of the roots of spirituals and gospel.

It's 2025 though, and of course we arrived here on this, on this continent many centuries ago with that music and with those traditions.

Let's talk about what that looks like now and how it may be different.

How the influence may be different than it has been in the past.

Dr. Pollard, I'll start with you.

- Oh, okay.

Influence on the community?

- Sure.

- Well, it continues in some interesting ways.

Jamal Roberts just won on American.

- Yeah, Idol.

- Idol, right.

And he was singing gospel songs.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- He had earlier been on "Sunday Best."

- [Stephen] Yes.

- Where he had not won, but Kirk Franklin had encouraged him.

- Yeah.

- To just, you know, connect with the audience.

And he had so many votes on American Idol that I think it means that people don't just brush gospel music too, you know, aside, because it sounds great and many of them embrace the message of it.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- There are other places, of course, where we can see it, of course, in TV shows and movies.

I don't know, sometimes I look up, and I'm like, wait a minute, you guys are singing "Oh, Happy Day?"

Okay, this song was recorded all these years ago, 55 years ago, and you're still singing it, but it still has an influence on so many people.

- Yeah.

- And that's really great.

- You know, the American Idol example is really interesting because, well, number one, that's a show that's supposed to search for, you know, pop singers, I guess, is what they would probably say.

Selecting a gospel singer is kind of a nod to, you know, the overlap and the influence on the music.

And it's a popular vote, right?

- That's right.

- It's people choosing, and it's people from a wide demographic, right?

It's not just African Americans.

- That's right, oh, absolutely not, that's right.

- Who are doing that, right?

- It's mostly other people.

So for them to acknowledge that, oh, this is American music.

This is idol worthy is really interesting.

- I can just say something academic.

That boy can sing, okay, yeah.

(all laughing) - Right, it didn't matter what he was singing, it was just that he could.

- That's right, that's right.

- Yeah, Dr. Waddles, you are the Associate Music Director for this production of "The Wiz."

I think that's interesting too in the context of gospel.

That's not a gospel musical, but the songs in it are not different from gospel.

- They are not at all.

I have been having this conversation on a number of different iterations about how this revival of "The Wiz," - [Stephen] Yeah.

- Is inclusive of so many different generations.

Those generations that first witnessed the young Stephanie Mills back in the 70s, those of us that found the cult movie, you know, so Quincy and Barry with Diana and Michael.

That's how we got to it.

- Right, right, right.

- And now a new generation that can experience it on stage.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- Again, and what I will say is that African American music over its evolution continues to influence upon itself.

So spirituals are being impressed upon by all of the different genres that it helped to create, like jazz and gospel music, but also hip hop.

We've got a dance break that's in the middle of "Slide Some Oil to Me" that mind you was put together by figures like JaQuel Knight and Adam Blackstone.

- [Stephen] Oh, really?

- Who, you know, have worked with Beyonce.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- And everyone else.

We have a wonderful vocal arranger by the name of Allen Rene Louis, who is the Artistic Director of the Broadway Inspirational Voices who put together these gospel tinged vocal arrangements in, you know, "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News" and Evillene's got her tambourine.

Kyla Jade, who was a former contestant from "The Voice" who is now playing Evillene and Aunt Em, and it is, you know, it's a house burner.

You know, it would tear the church down if we were across the street, you know, at Bishop Shears' Church or something like that, you know.

And so there are all of these inspirations that we receive that help us to feel seen.

- Yeah.

- And that is so important.

You know, just the idea of "The Wiz" about feeling seen, about feeling home, and remembering that for many of us in African American culture, the first home was the church.

- Right, right.

- When we had no place else to go.

- No place else, that's right.

- Sure.

- You know, with "The Wiz," I always think of, you know, that last number that Dorothy sings, "Home," and the fact that I had a conversation with someone a few years ago who was talking about that song, and they wanted to play it for me, and the version they called up was the Whitney Houston version.

And they said, Whitney Houston sang this song.

I said, actually, Stephanie Mills first sang that song, then Diana Ross sang that song.

And they had no idea, right?

I mean, I feel like that musical and the music from it kind of inhabits each generation differently, right?

- Absolutely.

- People come across it in different ways, and whatever is their first experience with it is the one that they think is the one.

- Is the one.

- Yes, exactly.

Is the one, right?

- They are so held to and indebted to that iteration.

- Yeah.

- Some people find the movie to be the version.

- Right, right.

- People who never experienced it on stage.

- Yeah.

- You know, so Diana is their Dorothy, you know, Stephanie is someone else's Dorothy.

And then I think about all of the local and regional theater productions of "The Wiz" that have happened all over North America and otherwise, they've been happening all over the world.

- That's right.

- You know, so everybody's got their Dorothy.

- Yeah.

- Everybody's got their scarecrow and lion and Tin Man, you know?

It's a little bit of home, a different home to everybody.

And that's so beautiful because I always remind people that Blackness is not monolithic.

- Yeah.

- And so there's a beauty in the difference of experience for everybody.

- Yeah, yeah.

Before we were started taping, we were talking about the BET awards, and some of the influence and presence of gospel there.

You know, that's also interesting because again, it's that merging of the church and spirituality with pop culture, which is not always easy, and sometimes, you know, raises people's hackles about how appropriate is it for gospel music to be in that space, or how appropriate it is for pop culture to be influencing gospel music.

But I guess we never really get to sort that out.

It's fun to argue about though, isn't it?

- You know what, one of the things I always teach in my class is this is that the music is part of the community.

- Yeah.

- So the fact that we can go back and name all these different artists who included it, she's not gonna come for me 'cause we're, she likes me.

But Twinkie Clark, even though she was raised in the Church of God in Christ, which said, thou shall not listen to secular music.

- Right.

- How could you be in Detroit with Stevie Wonder's music.

- Exactly.

- And not hear Master Blaster.

- Yeah.

- So that reggae sound in that song influenced "You Brought The Sunshine," which remains the biggest selling song by the Clark sisters who have won multiple Grammys.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- And are loved around the world.

So I just tell them, I said, you know, you say this belongs here, and this belongs here.

"Stomp," by Kirk Franklin.

Oh, that's the devil's music.

I went to, TD Jakes's "Women, Thou Art Loose" three years ago.

I'm walking in, there's a DJ playing it.

There were folks older than me.

There were folks young enough to be my great granddaughters who all knew the words to the song and even the rap that Salt was doing, okay?

So I'm just saying, I always tell them, just take a breath in 10 minutes or 10 years, okay?

It's gonna switch over, and you're going to embrace it and say, I really wish that they could make more songs like Stomp.

Okay, all right.

- It's so generational, right?

- Yes, it's so.

- We can go back to the beginnings of Black Gospel music as we know it.

Our accredited father.

- [Deborah] That's right.

- Thomas Dorsey was a blues player.

- [Deborah] Blues musician.

- And worked with Ma Rainey, you know, one of the great mothers of the blues.

And they would throw him out of the church for that gospel blues that we now term as the sound of Black gospel music.

- [Deborah] That's right.

- [Stephen] Right, right.

- [Deborah] Traditional.

- Yeah.

Traditional.

You can go classic and go to James Cleveland and then go find your way to Edwin and Walter Hawkins and Andre Crouch, who were, you know, at sometimes bastardized for the sounds that they brought.

- Oh, absolutely.

- That now, then at some point later they called, oh, then now that's gospel.

- Yeah, uh, huh, right.

- And then of course Kurt Franklin, you know, sampling.

- That's right.

- You know, hip hop and rap and stomp.

And they say, now that's gospel now.

- That's right.

- You know, so we're always going to flipping, but the same thing happens with rhythm and blues, R&B.

- With R&B, yeah.

- Because they booed Whitney at the Soul Train Awards, you know, for a sound that they felt wasn't truly.

- Right.

- RB, you know?

- Yeah.

- I think it's so funny, but I think it's good to allow for the dialogue.

- Yeah.

- About what our sounds are and what they are continuing to evolve.

- I was gonna say, it's still evolving.

So where is it headed now?

- Well, let's just say the biggest selling gospel female is CeCe Winans.

But I have academic friends who will not be named who think because some of her music is categorized as CCM, Contemporary Christian Music and not categorized as gospel, they're like, I just can't play that anymore.

- Oh really?

- I'm just not gonna share that anymore.

And so when we were talking about the sounds, but there are others and Tasha Cobbs Leonard, and there are many others who also embrace CCM and gospel music.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- But we have, some of us have in our head, if it doesn't sound like the day I got saved, okay, then it can't really be gospel music, but it changes.

And the fact is it's a message, and if the message is delivered.

- It's still there.

- Then, calm down.

- Yeah.

- Okay?

- Yeah.

- Just calm down - So much about the needs of the community, right?

We have now in 2025 different needs than those that grew up during the civil rights era.

- Sure.

- You know, who were influenced by, you know, James Cleveland and Mattie Moss Clark, and certainly, you know, they had different needs perhaps, than those that were influenced by Claire Ward and, you know, all of those.

Thomas Dorsey and Mahalia Jackson.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- We have needs that are being met by CeCe and Kurt Franklin and GloRilla.

(all laughing) - Right, even that, right?

- You know, we just, we have different needs.

- That's right.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- And what we have to realize, you know, as Nina Simone would often talk about is that we have a responsibility with our art.

- [Stephen] What a great phrase, right?

- We have a great responsibility with our art.

And so as long as we remember the message and the need, the music needs to meet that.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- However, however it does so sonically.

- Yeah.

- If I could say this right quick.

- Sure.

- When I was 18 years on JLB, okay?

- Right, right.

- I would play Holy Hip Hop, and I would say, if this is not the sound that you embrace, turn it down and pray for those who can embrace it.

- [Stephen] Oh, there we go.

- Because the message is there.

- [Stephen] Right.

- That's it.

- It's still the same message.

Yeah, yeah, so when I think about gospel, I always think about one song and one version of it.

And it's a live recording that I have of Mahalia Jackson singing "How I Got Over."

- Okay, okay.

- And it is, for me, it's everything musically and spiritually that says gospel to me.

And, of course, that's because that's the music that I heard in my house when I was a kid.

You know, I mean, I think that's how you relate to it.

But it also makes it hard for me sometimes to hear what's going on now and think, well, this is okay or this is the same thing.

Is it?

Maybe, maybe not.

- Just turn it down and pray for those who are listening to it that they can embrace it.

- It's so interesting, you know, when we think about different songs, remember we talked about "Home?"

- Yeah.

- And how one person hears that title, and they say, oh, that's Whitney.

Another says Stephanie.

- Right.

- You said "How I Got Over," and I thought, Aretha.

- You thought Aretha.

- Okay.

- "Amazing Grace" album.

- That's a great version too, right?

- And it's so interesting to think about, even though Aretha, our dear queen from this home in Detroit who started out at New Bethel with her daddy and James Cleveland, mind you, who was there as a Mr. Music at some point, but at the time that she recorded that, she was very much steeped in rhythm and blues.

- [Stephen] Yeah, yeah.

- And in popular music.

So it seemed to some people to be almost a complete 180 for her to go to church.

- [Stephen] Yeah, right.

- And sing "How I Got Old," but of course, she would've been inspired.

- That's where it came from.

- By figures like a Clara Ward and a Mahalia Jackson.

You know, those people who were good and dear friends of her father, Reverend C.L., you know?

- Yeah.

All right, great conversation.

We could sit here all day talking about, I think, gospel.

But it's great to have both of you here.

Thanks so much for joining.

- So good to be here.