Horace Clarence Boyer

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Horace Clarence Boyer
Born(1935-07-28)July 28, 1935
DiedJuly 21, 2009(2009-07-21) (aged 73)

Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer (July 28, 1935 – July 21, 2009) was one of the foremost scholars in African-American gospel music.

Contents

Life and career

Boyer received a B.A. from Bethune-Cookman College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music. He and his brother James had a career as singers under the name the Famous Boyer Brothers. The brothers recorded for Excello (1952), Chance (1954), Vee-Jay (1955 and 1957), Nashboro and Savoy (1966 and 1967). He appeared with such artists as Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland, Alex Bradford, Clara Ward, and Dorothy Love Coates.

As an educator, he taught at several universities, including the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1973-1999), Albany State College (GA), the University of Central Florida at Orlando and Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music where he served as Senior Research Fellow and visiting professor in 1992. [1] He directed many choirs and gospel workshops throughout the world, including annual events such as the Gospel Music Festival in Boulder, CO which he led from 1988 to 2008. [2] The author of the 1995 book, How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel Music, which received high praise from Booklist and Library Journal , Dr. Boyer was instrumental in introducing African-American gospel music to many communities beyond the African-American church. [3]

He served as guest curator of musical history at the Smithsonian Institution from 1985 to 1986, and was Distinguished Scholar-at-Large at Fisk University in 1986 and 1987, where he conducted the famed Fisk Jubilee Singers. [4] He was an advisor on gospel music to the New Grove Dictionary of American Music and was editor of the 1993 edition of the African American hymnal, Lift Every Voice and Sing, II. Horace Boyer published over 40 articles on gospel music in publications that included the Music Educators Journal , the Black Music Research Journal and Black Perspectives in Music.

He was the 2009 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of The Society for American Music, an award whose past recipients include Robert Stevenson, Eileen Southern, Billy Taylor, H. Wiley Hitchcock, Bill C. Malone, Adrienne Fried Block, Vivian Perlis, Charles Hamm and other important musicologists, historians and educators. [5]

Related Research Articles

The Soul Stirrers were an American gospel music group, whose career spans over eighty years. The group was a pioneer in the development of the quartet style of gospel, and a major influence on Soul, Doo wop, and the Motown sound, some of the secular music that owed much to gospel.

Spirituals is a genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged varied African cultural influences with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs", work songs, and plantation songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs in church. In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s, the emancipation altering mainly the nature of slavery for many. Many new derivative music genres such as the blues emerged from the spirituals songcraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fisk University</span> Historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, US

Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its 40-acre (16 ha) campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirley Caesar</span> American gospel singer (born 1938)

Shirley Ann Caesar-Williams, nee Caesar,, known professionally as Shirley Caesar, is an American gospel singer. Her career began in 1951, when she signed to Federal Records at the age of 12. Throughout her seven decade career, Caesar has often been referred to as the "First Lady of Gospel Music", and "The Queen of Gospel Music". She has won eleven Grammy Awards, fifteen Dove Awards, and fourteen Stellar Awards.

Michael Curb is an American musician, record company executive, motorsports car owner, philanthropist, and former politician. He is the founder and chairman of Curb Records and is the chairman of Word Entertainment. He was inducted into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame in 2006. Curb is a member of the Republican party and served as the 42nd lieutenant governor of California from 1979 to 1983. As of 2024, Curb is the last Republican to be elected to Lieutenant Governor of California to date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swing Low, Sweet Chariot</span> African-American spiritual song

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is an African-American spiritual song and one of the best-known Christian hymns. Originating in early African-American musical traditions, the song was probably composed in the late 1860s by Wallace Willis, a Choctaw freedman. Performances by the Hampton Singers and the Fisk Jubilee Singers brought the song to the attention of wider audiences in the late 19th century. The earliest known recording of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was recorded in 1894, by the Standard Quartette.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Dixie Hummingbirds</span> American gospel music group

The Dixie Hummingbirds are an influential American gospel music group, spanning more than 80 years from the jubilee quartet style of the 1920s, through the "hard gospel" quartet style of gospel's golden age in the 1940s and 1950s, to the eclectic pop-tinged songs of today. The Hummingbirds inspired a number of imitators, such as Jackie Wilson and James Brown, who adapted the shouting style and enthusiastic showmanship of hard gospel to secular themes to help create soul music in the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sallie Martin</span> American singer (1895–1988)

Sallie Martin was an American gospel singer referred to as the "Mother of Gospel" for her efforts to popularize the songs of Thomas A. Dorsey and her influence on other artists.

John Wesley Work III was an American composer, educator, choral director, musicologist and scholar of African-American folklore and music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fisk Jubilee Singers</span> African-American a cappella ensemble

The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditional spirituals, but included some songs by Stephen Foster. The original group toured along the Underground Railroad path in the United States, as well as performing in England and Europe. Later 19th-century groups also toured in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horace Mann Bond</span> American academic administrator and historian

Horace Mann Bond was an American historian, college administrator, social science researcher and the father of civil-rights leader Julian Bond. He earned graduate and doctoral degrees from University of Chicago at a time when only a small percentage of any young adults attended any college. He was an influential leader at several historically black colleges and was appointed the first president of Fort Valley State University in Georgia in 1939, where he managed its growth in programs and revenue. In 1945, he became the first African-American president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mattie Moss Clark</span> American Gospel Singer-Songwriter (1925-1994)

Mattie Moss Clark was an American gospel choir director and the mother of The Clark Sisters, a gospel vocal group. She was the longest-serving International Minister of Music for the Church of God in Christ (COGIC). "Her arrangements, perhaps influenced by her classical training, replaced the unison or two-part textures of earlier gospel music with three-part settings of the music for soprano, alto, and tenor voice ranges—a technique that remained common in gospel choir music for decades afterward."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wade in the Water</span> African American jubilee song

"Wade in the Water" is an African American jubilee song, a spiritual—in reference to a genre of music "created and first sung by African Americans in slavery."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nehemiah Hunter Brown</span> Musical artist

Nehemiah Brown is an American gospel music singer, songwriter, arranger, professional musician, teacher, vocal coach and choral director.

Document Records is an independent record label, founded in Austria and now based in Scotland, that specializes in reissuing vintage blues and jazz. The company has been recognised by The Blues Foundation, being honoured with a Keeping the Blues Alive Award in 2018. Document Records is the only UK-based recipient of the award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avery Sharpe</span> American jazz bassist, composer, and educator

Avery Sharpe is an American jazz double-bassist, electric bassist, composer, educator and founder of the artist-owned record label, JKNM Records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wesley Work Jr.</span> American musicologist

John Wesley Work Jr. was a musicologist, the first African-American collector of folk songs and spirituals, and also a choral director, educationalist singer and songwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Washington Kennedy</span> American classical composer

Matthew Washington Kennedy was an American classical pianist, professor, choral director, composer, and arranger of Negro Spirituals. He is widely known as the director of the historic Fisk Jubilee Singers of Nashville, Tennessee from 1957 to 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cora Martin-Moore</span> American singer (1927–2005)

Cora Juanita Brewer Martin-Moore (1927–2005) was a gospel singer. She was a soloist in the Sallie Martin Singers and the director of the Echoes of Eden Choir. She also had her own music publishing company.

Julian Cassander Work was an arranger and composer.

References

  1. "Obituary - Horace Clarence Boyer - University of Massachusetts Amherst" (PDF). University of Massachusetts Amherst. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 7, 2013. Retrieved August 15, 2012.
  2. Marshall, Julie (30 January 2004) "Soulful singing" Daily Camera
  3. Olson, Ray (1 September 1995) "Review" Booklist
  4. "BIOGRAPHIES - University of Massachusetts Amherst, Horace Clarence Boyer" (PDF). University of Massachusetts Amherst. Retrieved August 15, 2012.
  5. "Lifetime Achievement Award". The Society for American Music. Retrieved August 15, 2012.[ permanent dead link ]

Additional references