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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Sound Business: Great Women Of Gospel Music And The rT ansmission Of Tradition Nina Christina Öhman University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the African American Studies Commons, Music Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Öhman, Nina Christina, "Sound Business: Great Women Of Gospel Music And The rT ansmission Of Tradition" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2646. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2646 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2646 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sound Business: Great Women Of Gospel Music And The rT ansmission Of Tradition Abstract From the 1930s to the present, women have played instrumental and visible leadership roles in the remarkable growth of African American gospel music. Through both creative and entrepreneurial activities, these women paved the way for the expansion of an emotive sacred music expression from the worship practices of southern migrants to audiences around the world. This dissertation focuses on the work of three cultural trailblazers, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and Karen Clark Sheard, who stand out in the development of gospel music as virtuosic vocalists and pivotal figures whose sonic imprints can be heard both in sacred songs performed in churches and in American popular music. By deploying exceptional musicality, a deep understanding of African American Christianity, and an embrace of commercialism, the three singers have conserved and reworked musical elements derived from an African American heritage into a powerful performance rhetoric. By using musical mastery, they have forged paths for gospel music as a commercial phenomena and a vehicle to transform discourses of race, gender, class, and religion. At the same time, they have managed other duties and responsibilities in their families, in their communities, and in the music industry, thus demonstrating that “greatness” in gospel music is the outcome of extraordinary skills and various interwoven forms of labor. Through the study of the musical lives of Jackson, Franklin, and Clark Sheard from an intergenerational perspective, this dissertation posits that they participate in making a feminist music culture that prioritizes spiritual authenticity and the commercialization of musical knowledge as a counter-hegemonic practice. Thus, their contributions should be first viewed as “cultural work,” a form of African American women’s activism that consciously advances a female musical perspective in the service of community furtherance. In broad terms, this exploration of women’s gospel music legacies elucidates the cultural, spiritual, and commercial processes that have shaped African American sacred music practices, and as such, it provides new insights into a creative domain which has produced the most influential vocal idiom in American popular music. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Music First Advisor Guthrie P. Ramsey Keywords African American women, commercialism, gospel music, religion, singers, spirituality This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2646 Subject Categories African American Studies | Music | Women's Studies This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2646 SOUND BUSINESS: GREAT WOMEN OF GOSPEL MUSIC AND THE TRANSMISSION OF TRADITION Nina Christina Öhman A DISSERTATION in Music Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Supervisor of Dissertation ________________________ Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music Graduate Group Chairperson ________________________ Carol A. Muller, Professor of Music Dissertation Committee: Carol A. Muller, Professor of Music Timothy Rommen, Professor of Music and Africana Studies SOUND BUSINESS: GREAT WOMEN OF GOSPEL MUSIC AND THE TRANSMISSION OF TRADITION COPYRIGHT 2017 Nina Christina Öhman This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ DEDICATION For my parents Christina Öhman and Matti Öhman !iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the contributions of many persons and organizations that made the accomplishment of this dissertation possible. I would like to extend a warm thank you to the members of the congregations of the New Bethel Baptist Church and the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ in Detroit and the Second Antioch Baptist Church in Philadelphia, who welcomed me into their communities and gave their invaluable insights on the gospel music tradition. I also want to express a great thank you to the artists, musicians, music professionals, the staff of Sophia’s Giftique of Detroit, and others who kindly shared their knowledge with me. I would like to express a heartfelt thank you to my dissertation committee. My dissertation advisor Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., your amazing intellectual guidance, immense knowledge, and positive outlook have profoundly shaped me as a scholar. Through your musicality and teachings, you have transformed the way I hear and think about music. Thank you for always being there to give good counsel and for meeting me to discuss the work, even if I was only on a short layover in the city. My second reader Carol Muller, I admire your intellect and beautiful writing; you are an extraordinary scholar whose example I aspire to follow. Thank you for encouraging me to think broadly and to be innovative. Thank you for your excellent mentorship and strong support at every turn, which made it possible for my dream to come true. My third reader Timothy Rommen, your scholarship and instruction have been invaluable for my intellectual growth. Thank you for sharing your brilliance for the benefit of this dissertation. In addition, thanks to !iv the many professors with whom I had the privilege to study at the University of Pennsylvania. You provided superbly stimulating seminars and gave me a tremendous array of scholarly tools. I also want to thank the staff in the Music Department Office, Alfreda Frazier, Maryellen Malek, and Margie Smith. I appreciate your careful attention to my matters, whether big or small. Your timely help and your welcoming demeanor made each visit to the office such a delightful event. I would like to recognize my mentor and friend through the years, Professor Stephen Carroll. I am honored and grateful that you have guided my path since I was a basketball player and an undergraduate at the University of Maryland. I also want to acknowledge the valuable support of the late Shelton Davis, the late Hermann Nissenbaum, Alexandra Habershon, and Sharon Spriggs, all of whom have helped me in various ways to realize my scholarly aspirations. I am extremely appreciative of the generous funding for this dissertation work that was provided by the University of Pennsylvania, the Mellon Humanities endowment, the Barbara and Edward Netter Fund through the Thanks to Scandinavia Foundation, and the Dean’s Office. My conference travel was supported by a School of Arts and Sciences travel grant. I studied the archives in several institutional settings, and I would like to thank all the curators, historians, archivists, and librarians for their time and help. Especially, I thank Eric Seiferth of the Historic New Orleans Collection for using substantial time to prepare the materials I requested and sending them to me when I was in Finland. Also !v thanks to Melissa Samson, Michelle McKinney, Patrina Chatman, Otis Youngsmith, and LaNesha DeBardelaben of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. I want to express my gratitude to the following individuals for their insights, comments on my drafts, and support in various capacities: Michael Veal, Ronald Radano (Thank you for inviting me to the Music-Race-Empire symposium), Deborah Smith Pollard, Kai Alhanen, Pirkko Moisala and the members of the research collective at the University of Helsinki, Antti-Ville Kärjä, Juha Henriksson, and Jouni Eerola of the Music Archive Finland and the JAPA seminar participants, Elina Seye and the Global Music Centre seminar participants, members of the Maryland Women’s basketball team, Craig White, Winnie Smart (Thank you for the beautiful handmade blanket), Cheryl Wecksler, Jeremy Spohr, Amanda Phipps, and Tanja Utunen. I would like to thank my graduate school cohort for making my time at Penn intellectually and socially fulfilling and so enjoyable. Suzanne Bratt, you have a beautiful heart, and you are a true friend. Glenn Holtzman, you are my dear brother and my kindred spirit. Thank you also for providing a second home for Loli, the exquisite Afghan hound. Christine Dang, I treasure our conversations and I am awed by your perceptiveness. Thanks to all my Penn colleagues, particularly Ian MacMillan, Matthew Valnes, Melissa Dunphy, and Emily Joy Rothchild, who continue to form a supportive and stimulating intellectual community. I would like to acknowledge my friends who have sustained me over the years and who continue to revive my spirits with life-affirming moments of laughter.

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