Entering the world of blues and gospel music literature is like entering a botanical garden: nomenclature is everywhere. Singers' nicknames intrigue: Gatemouth Brown, Big Time Sarah, Lazy Bill Lucas, Mojo Buford, Bumble Bee Slim, The Devil's Son-in-Law, Cow Cow Davenport, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blues Boy King, Driftin' Slim, Honeyboy Edwards, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters – the list goes on and on. Names of blues songs suggest real and imagined worlds: “The Gone Dead Train,” “Judge Harsh Blues,” “Tim Moore's Farm,” “Rough Dried Woman,” “Don't Lose Your Eye,” “Bye Bye Bird,” and “Money, Marbles and Chalk,” to name but a few. Perhaps more pertinent to this book, a formidable terminology classifies blues and gospel music according to style, genre, period, and geographical location. Promising mastery and control, these labels conceal a good deal of confusion and misleading information. On the other hand, without labels it is difficult to discuss music – or anything else – in its historical, geographical, and formal aspects.

Names exert control. An anecdote concerning the provenance of gospel music will reveal the stakes involved in naming. George Nierenberg, the filmmaker who conceived, shot, and edited Say Amen Somebody(1983), the best-known documentary film about African American gospel music, had asked me to be a consultant, to suggest ideas for filming, and to review footage. Looking over the rough cut, an early edited version, I directed a comment toward the inevitable historical section, suggesting that he provide something about the origin and early development of the term “gospel hymn,” particularly in the last few decades of the nineteenth century as a descriptor of a genre of religious music composed by white Americans such as Fanny Crosby (1820–1915), and made widely popular in mass religious revival meetings by Ira Sankey.