Daddy Sang Lead: The History and Performance Practice of White Southern Gospel Music.
By Stanley Heard Brobston.

New York: Vantage Press, 2006.

446 pages. $26.95 cloth.

During the summers of 1975 and 1976, Stan Brobston, a doctoral student at New York University,
traveled through 25 rural counties of his native south Georgia documenting family gospel singing
groups. After identifying 177 such groups, Brobston chose one from each county to interview.

I was a high-school girl when Brobston, who is from my hometown, Baxley, was pursuing his
research. I knew nothing of his project, nor did I know anything of musicology.

Years later, retired from a career as a music teacher, Brobston has published his findings in Daddy Sang Lead. This thrillingly esoteric and highly documented book is not only a compilation of Brobston’s research, but an in-depth look at the history of gospel music.

Religious hymnody enjoys a long tradition in this country. The very first book published in North
America, in 1640, was the Bay Psalm Book, which transposed the Biblical psalms into meter that could be sung. But the term “gospel music” came to be applied to the South’s particular brand of religious music. In the predominantly fundamentalist religious society of the rural South, music was not simply an adjunct to sermonizing, but a form of worship in its own right.

Brobston’s extensive and fascinating work traces popular Southern hymnody through camp meetings, all-night sings, singing schools, and singing conventions. Later, in the 1920s, commercial radio enabled Southern gospel music to attract a wide audience. Its modern commercialization includes entire radio stations devoted to the genre and plans for a Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Although I am not a serious fan of gospel, it is the predominant music of my growing-up, and I found Brobston’s study engaging. The final section of his ethnography focuses on the singing groups themselves, with vivid descriptions of the members and anecdotes recorded during field
interviews. (One leader, who was not talkative, twice asked, “Are you sure this is not going to cost me anything?”) These groups performed in their homes for Dr. Brobston, who recorded and analyzed their singing styles, including variances from the published songs. Interestingly, he
includes photographs of the groups, as well as the sheet music of each group’s favorite song.

Most often, the group consisted of a mother, father, one or two children, and a friend, likely an instrumentalist. Usually the father would sing lead, the mother alto; a piano was the most common instrument for accompaniment. Performances would generally be within a 50-mile radius of home, most often at their own church. The group would sing gospel exclusively, and would not accept remuneration for what they considered their ministry.

Generally, the family would belong to a smaller, rural Baptist Church. “The gospel singing groups would more likely be found in churches that did not have a telephone,” writes Brobston, who sings in his own church choir, “or in churches having a telephone but with no one present to answer it when church was not in session.” Members of the groups would be working-class, although not
farmers. Little reading material would be found in the home.

JANISSE RAY