But professional southern gospel has always been strongly grounded its history and identity in the male quartet. Alexandria, Ind. . Most fundamentalists and many conservative evangelicals believe this return will be presaged by certain historical events, including cataclysmic conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land, the rise of Anti-Christ, and the emergence of a one-world order. With respect to The Martins, the same music on an album titled From Hyde Park With Love, or even From Hilton Head With Love, would likely not be considered southern gospel by most of its intended audiences. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_63', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_63').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); In considering The Martins's arrival "From Arkansas With Love," I have demonstrated how a network of religious, geographic, and cultural associations merge in the construction of imagined place. The videos still air regularly on many local-access religious television channels, but sales today are largely driven through merchandizing at concerts, the Gaither Homecoming Magazine, syndicated radio shows on terrestrial and satellite radio, and not least of all through the Gaither online store. Even though I do not have a better name for it, I remain deeply ambivalent about "northern urban gospel." Bill Gaither, Tallahassee, Florida, 2006. When and where did baseball player Bob Joyce die? In the process, The Martins's music and cultural valence become revalued and highly desirable within the network of associations and commitments merging at the intersection of white conservative Christianity, right-wing cultural politics, and a "global service economy. Researched in the 1990s and published in 2002. Joyce: So we went into the bathroom. The Best of the Martins. For an extended discussion of the psychodynamics of southern gospel, see ibid., 149. My focus on professional southern gospel music is distinct from the avocational or amateur tradition, known as convention singing. Judy Martin Hess (b. This pan-stylistic hybridity was apparent in the group's repertoire before their Gaither affiliation. Nominated in the "Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music" category, CCM soloist Natalie Grant attended the ceremony, only to leave before the show ended. Explored through the Martins, how do non-musical categories of knowledge, patterns of affiliation, and cultural valuessuch as sense of placehelp clarify, sustain, or revalue religious music traditions, identities, subject positions, and the ideological commitments those traditions encompass? Fortunately, new and forthcoming work in the study of southern gospel is beginning to scrutinize Gloria Gaither's role as a Christian entrepreneur, thinker, and writer much more closely. Michael actually took us there and Mark and Mike tried to figure out a way for Bill [Gaither] to hear us sing. See Robert K. Whalen, "Premillennialism," The Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements, ed. Several prominent bluegrass and old time families have been mainstays of southern gospel since family acts began to emerge in the 1930s and 1940s: most prominently, The Lewis Family and The Chuck Wagon Gang, and later the Primitive Quartet, The Easters, and The Isaacs. Several prominent bluegrass and old time families have been mainstays of southern gospel since family acts began to emerge in the 1930s and 1940s: most prominently, The Lewis Family and The Chuck Wagon Gang, and later the Primitive Quartet, The Easters, and The Isaacs. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_17', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_17').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Such an approach asks how southern gospel artists (most from beyond the state) use Arkansas's status as an imaginative resource to make sense of themselves and their music in late twentieth and early twenty-first century fundamentalist Protestantism.18I have in mind the period in American conservative and fundamentalist evangelicalism inaugurated by Richard Nixon's conjuring of the "silent majority" of cultural traditionalists who opposed the advance of liberal policies and social practices in the US. Dochuk, Darren. Douglas Harrison is Associate Professor of English and Assistant Director of the Center for Faculty Innovation at James Madison University. And both black and white gospel have "borrowed those aspects, reinterpreting them for their own cultures" and purposes. Claiming a home in southern gospel grounds The Martins in an imagined identity that they in turn hold out for fans seeking models of stability and reassurance in an extended moment of great cultural change and instability for white evangelical fundamentalist religious culture. Today it designates right-leaning North American Protestantism defined in large part by its opposition to cultural, theological, and political liberalism. The Martins. See Goff, Close Harmony, 233236, 269274. It is in this tradition of pietistic, blood-bought, soul-saving, life-giving harmony of the one true way to Christ that The Martins were raised and trained. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Many southern gospel performers and groups incorporate covers of traditional black gospel songs and spirituals into their repertoire. This period was followed by the mobilization of right-leaning Protestants (and many conservative Catholics) into a political base for the Republican Party in the Reagan Era and a power base for evangelical leaders (including Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, Pat Robertson'sand later Ralph Reed'sChristian Coalition, and, more recently, Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, and Tony Perkins's Family Research Council); and the not-entirely unrelated realignments within conservative and fundamentalist Protestantism wrought by the rise of non-denominational evangelical mega-churches and the Tea Party. For discussions of the Traveler trope see "The Arkansas Traveler" entries in the online resources of the Historic Arkansas Museum, accessed October 1, 2013, http://www.arkansas-traveler.org, and on Arkansas.com, Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. Professional black gospel, which has a historically longstanding relationship with African American worship traditions to a much greater extent than commercial white Christian music has with white Protestant churches, has remained creatively vibrant. Mud, set in the Arkansas Mississippi River Delta, powerfully evokes the fluidity of class, ethnicity, and geography as defining features of identity in a region where the flux of life is so heavily dependent on, shaped by, and intertwined with the flow of the river. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism. Actress. Unlike "northern urban" gospel (a phrase with no currency outside academe), it is the preferred way to self-identify within the culture and the most widely recognized way to describe the music to outsiders. From Arkansas With Love demonstrates southern gospel's influence. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_29', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_29').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); But the development of professional gospel resonates most powerfully as part of white fundamentalist evangelical withdrawal from mainstream secular society over the long twentieth century. And I've never been more sure of the path I've chosen." The songs are structurally derivative and lyrically conventional, but this music is interesting for what it suggests about The Martins's cultural temperament and expressive style, best described in these early years as one of rustic post-teen southern evangelical angsty spiritual wonderment. "13Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 103. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_13', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_13').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Consequently, in what follows, "southern gospel" stands as shorthand for professional, commercialized white gospel from, or culturally aligned with, the evangelical fundamentalist South. This essay is interested primarily with professional southern gospel, which descends from convention singing but has been distinct from it since the 1930s and 1940s. For more on Gaither Homecomings and their role and appeal in southern gospel and beyond, see ibid., 110136. Recording companies experienced similar contractions. Jonathan Martin lives in West Des Moines, Iowa with his wife, and their six children, including twin boys, one of which has cerebral palsy. Marty Joyce's birth. Gaither Gospel Series DVD cover. See Harrison. Martin Jarvis; Randy Edelman; David Jason; Michael Hordern; Oliver Williams; Community. "39Jennifer Lena, Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 2. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_39', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_39').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); My approach attends to southern gospel as a musical style,40Lower compositional sophistication, more uneven production quality, and rougher cuts by commercial standardsall defining features of the southern gospel sound of the past twenty yearscan function for many evangelicals and fundamentalists as indices of a more real music and catalysts for a more authentic experience of the religious self. This element of cultural separatism has reemerged in the past generation within southern gospel. In this context, gospel music functions as a style of vernacular religious entertainment and a form of evangelical cultural experience transcending denominations or confessional traditions. "43Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 124. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011. Updated: June 20, 2015 Biography ID: 102744141 She released her . Photograph by Judy Baxter. Joyce E Martin 1946 Born c. 1946 Last Known Residence Texas Summary Joyce E Martin of Texas was born c. 1946. During the last three decades of the twentieth century, these conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists ceased perceiving themselves in the Nixonian paradigm as a silent majority existing voicelessly and invisibly within mainstream US politics and culture. Christian vocalists The Martins Joyce Martin Sanders, Jonathan Martin and Judy Martin Hess perform at the Missouri Theater at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17. What started in Hawaii more than a decade earlier ends in Studio A in Andersonville, Indiana, with Gaither presiding as witness to The Martins's musical authenticityby sea, in the studio, (notionally) on command, at home among southern gospel's Homecoming Friends or in faraway lands. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_53', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_53').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); If The Martins's Arkansas origins are not revealed in this story, their roots surface in a 2011 Gaither Homecoming video, The Best of The Martins, a collection of performances over the preceding nineteen years. Bill never comes out into the foyer but Gloria does. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_46', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_46').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); The paradox of The Martins's Homecoming reputation as masters of classic gospel hymnody and their much wider stylistic reach and renown before and beyond the Homecoming stage suggests that there is more to their appeal to southern gospel audiences than can be accounted for by their music. Researched in the 1990s and published in 2002, Close Harmony traces the music's development from the nineteenth century. His interview enacts a modern gospel version of the venerable Arkansas Traveler colloquy in which a high-born southerner (the Traveler) engages an Arkansas Squatter in a dialogue about the differences of class and geography.60Bill Clinton's presidential campaign used the Traveler name and image as a way to strengthen his populist appeal running against a Washington insider. Following the rapture is Tribulation, a seven-year period during which Anti-Christ reigns on earth, Millennium (during which time Satan is bound), and ultimately the establishment and eternal reign of Christ's kingdom. The music remains popular among white evangelicals and many African American Protestants, though its market sharelike that of most sectors of the music industryhas declined considerably.21Sales of "Christian/Gospel" (which consists overwhelmingly of CCM and black gospel music, but also includes some southern gospel) reached a high point in 1998, totaling $836 million; in 2012, total sales in the same category were $24.2 million. It emphasizes the unfolding of God's dealings with humanity in phases or eras ("dispensations"). The Martins's singing by the sea resonates with the disjunction of three "kids" from a cold-water backwoods shack harmonizing in an exotic locale with an international gospel touring company. Grammy.com, July 3, 2013, accessed October 1, 2013, http://www.grammy.com/blogs/andy-griffith-dies. Following the rapture is Tribulation, a seven-year period during which Anti-Christ reigns on earth, Millennium (during which time Satan is bound), and ultimately the establishment and eternal reign of Christ's kingdom. Judy Martin is married to Jake Hess, Jr., the son of the legendary southern gospel lead singer Jake Hess. Sunday services to reach the unchurched through polished music, multimedia, and sermons referencing popular culture and other familiar themes. For an analysis of the cultural and religious tensions between southern gospel traditionalists, who founded the GMA, and the CCM fans and performers whose tastes have dominated the GMA for nearly forty years, see Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 9196. Stephen Marini has provided the most sustained interpretive examination of bluegrass families in southern gospel: Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture (UrbanaChampaign: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 296320. The Martins Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family For the film starring Lee Evans, see The Martins (film)The Martins are a Christian music vocal trio composed of three siblings: Joyce Martin Sanders, Jonathan Martin, and Judy Martin Hess. Their mix of rustic piety and sophisticated harmonizing (in The Best of video, much is made of their performance with the Homecoming Friends at Carnegie Hall) gives audiences powerful, palpable reassurance that despite shifts in taste, technology, and demographics of Christian entertainment during the past three decades, southern gospel music and values are thriving and persevering in the youthful artistry and rustic ethos of normatively white, middle class, evangelical traditionalism embodied in artists such as The Martins. The Martins Biography by John Bush A brother-sisters trio of a cappella gospel harmonizers, the Martins consist of Joyce Martin McCollough, Jonathan Martin and Judy Martin Hess. The church's leadership believed the approach would attract people searching for answers, bring them into a relationship with Christ, and then capitalize on their contagious fervor to evangelize others" (Matt Branaugh, "Willow Creek's 'Huge Shift,'" ChristianityToday.com, May 15, 2008, accessed May 15, 2014, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/june/5.13.html). "8Stephen Shearon, Harry Eskew, James C. Downey, and Robert Darden, "Gospel Music," Grove Music Online, July 10, 2012, accessed October 15, 2013,http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/A2224388. When Gaither says, "You can take them anywhere," he seems to mean that in his role as producer and impresario he can rely on The Martins to stand and deliver whatever the show demands. Arkansas has long been defined by poverty and isolation born of the cashless frontier societies of the state's uplands and the agrarian barter economies that prevailed in the lowlands.55Morris Arnold, "The Significance of the Arkansas Colonial Experience," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 51 (Spring 1992): 7880. This movement was popular among (though not exclusive to) non-denominational evangelical megachurches. It is difficult to lend much credence to this account unless Gloria Gaither's opinion and judgment plays a much more determinative role in the Gaither image and Homecoming productions than is generally allowed or assumed.
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