Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel. By James R. Goff Jr. (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 394, notes including bibliographical references, index, ISBN 0-8078-5346-1)

While the title of this book speaks of gospel music and harmony, to this reader, the emphasis is squarely on the people and contexts that shaped the gospel music of the southern USA. Inadvertently perhaps, Goff also gives a good look at how America has become a commercial giant. For example, while describing gospel history Goff shows the personal ambition and work ethic of the performers — he mentions at least three that held down a full-time job while their music career was developing; secondly, how the very popularity of singing made it fertile soil for a music publishing industry; thirdly, while they seem strange bedfellows to many, business, family and religion were the glue of success for the gospel quartets; and fourthly, how the gospel music industry was constantly impelled by new media technology. Goff dedicates an entire chapter to James David Vaughan’s remarkable achievements in the late nineteenth century. Vaughan established a successful music school and journal. He bought a license for a radio station and developed a host of new fans; issued more than 60 records on his own label; published the weekly newspaper and had an army of salesmen, “… singing-school students and quartet members alike.…” (74) In Texas, another music empire was run by Virgil Oliver Stamps and later joined by J. R. Baxter. These men recognized the importance of radio to reach listeners and partnered with the 50,000 watt station XERL in Del Rio, Texas, to reach most of North America. All of this is fine, but the book title may attract music lovers whose main interest is in the music sound and how it changed over time. In Close Harmony, Goff describes many gospel groups: their names, their goals, but gives scant description of their sound. Surely it was musical qualities as much as family lineage that differentiated the groups one from another? True, music descriptions tend to be impressionistic, but the few used are so satisfying; for example, the Weatherfords “became one of the smoothest sounding gospel quartets of all time” (202). Nonetheless, there is some satisfying history. Goff’s gospel music history gives another perspective on the idiosyncratic music systems created by the early freedom-loving American pioneers. After a brief mention of the hymns in the seventeenth century psalters, often performed by “lining out” (a lead singer is imitated line by line by the congregation), we are plunged into evangelical theology in which salvation is individual responsibility. The spread of this theology, espoused by mushrooming numbers of Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptists, was aided by hymn singing at the great camp meetings. Only a favored few had songsters (books) so the rest joined in on the choruses which often had catchy tunes and words — an inclusive technique reminiscent of the lining out just mentioned. Another inclusive aspect of these early nineteenth century meetings, soon to be lost, was the participation of Blacks, and occasionally Native Americans. Publishers were quick to see opportunity in the growing demand for religious music. The shape-note system (each of the seven music pitches of the western scale were visually represented by a different shape), developed first by John Tufts, and refined by Little and Smith in their 1798 The Easy Instructor, made music reading a possibility for the common man. Goff describes it as “a popular-music renaissance” (22). Publishers churned out songbooks to meet the growing demand fueled by pentacostalism. Goff describes the businesses run by the likes of Joseph Funk, Aldine S. Kieffer, Ephraim Ruebush, and Anthony Johnson Showalter who not only ran shape-note singing schools but also published the books to be used. …