The research question
What work do interviewees say gospel performs in religious life, and how do they distinguish sacred ministry from style, entertainment, and commercial success?
Harlem and Chicago
The fieldwork archive
Interview notes, photographs, and recorded voices from the project.
The interview corpus
The corpus contains six interview encounters represented in seven transcripts. The speakers include Rev. Dr. Demetrius Lawrence at Mother Zion, church musician Charles Lavelle, individual and group interviews with St. Philip's congregants, Maria Rodriguez speaking through an interpreter, and gospel historian Robert M. Marovich.
The interview guide
- When did you first encounter gospel or church music?
- What do you feel before the music begins and while people are singing?
- What does gospel mean in your daily life?
- When you face anxiety or hardship, how do prayer, church, and music relate?
- Which songs, musicians, or worship practices did you inherit from older generations?
- How has music and bodily participation changed in this church?
- What makes a song gospel in your judgment?
- Which local singers or church histories are missing from commercial recordings and public archives?
- What should a younger listener understand about gospel beyond its sound?
Interview method
I used a semi-structured guide and adjusted the follow-up questions to each person's role. Conversations after worship focused on personal experience and church memory. The Marovich interview moved further into Chicago history, journalism, record collecting, forgotten performers, and the gospel industry.
Patterns and disagreements
Family memory appeared in a preferred pew and in songs learned as children. People described movement, prayer, and congregational support during hardship. They disagreed most sharply over contemporary artists and the meaning of "true gospel." Marovich's account added a second problem: many important local singers left little commercial record.