Rejoice & Shout covers the 200 year musical history of African-American Christianity, featuring the legends of Gospel Music, including The Staple Singers, The Clara Ward Singers, The Dixie Hummingbirds and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Culled from hundreds of hours of music, tracing the evolution of gospel music through it’s many styles – the spirituals and early hymns, the four-part-harmony-based quartets, the integration of blues and swing, the emergence of “soul”, and the blending of rap and hip-hop elements. It connects the history of African-American culture with the gospel as it first impacted popular culture at large and captures so much of what is special about this music and African-American Christianity.
Since I was a little girl I have loved gospel music. There is something about it that penetrates through your skin into your soul. I have always wanted that voice – that commanding, uplifting, inspiring, moved by something deeper voice of gospel singers. Watching this film was both informative and also moving… when the Queen of Gospel, Mahalia Jackson opens her voice and her heart you can’t help but be blown away.
The movie opens with the youngest member of an old gospel singing family, The Selvey Family, singing ‘Amazing Grace’; she had to have been around 7 and she sings with the voice of an Angel. In opening the film this way it begins with showing the next generation of gospel singers before going back over 200 years to its origins as plantation songs, through slavery, the Civil Rights era when gospel music had a double meaning when singing about ‘reaching the Promise Land’.
The film features interviews from gospel historians, authors and singers. It showcases archival and never before seen footage, one of them being the earliest known gospel recording from 1902 of Dinwiddie Colored Quart and takes you through time and history into its most modern form. It is actually so interesting to see the history of how music had changed through time and major historical events that even if you aren’t necessarily into Gospel music this film would be worth purchasing.
…And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. – Martin Luther King Jr.
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Purchase: You can purchase Rejoice & Shout for $16.99 on Amazon.
