Top 100 Quotes About Gospel Music
#1. Gospel music was the thing that inspired me as a child growing up on a cotton farm, where work was drudgery and it was so hard that when I was in the field I sang all the time. Usually gospel songs because they lifted me up above that black dirt.
Johnny Cash
#2. Gospel music is nothing but singing of good tidings -- spreading the good news. It will last as long as any music because it is sung straight from the human heart.
Mahalia Jackson
#3. For a long time, I was shy about recording gospel music, because I didn't necessarily want to show the inside of my soul, Milsap revealed. But now, the spiritual side of me is really shining through.
Ronnie Milsap
#4. To me, Gospel music is really any music that's a testimony and tells a story of what God has done in your life.
Laura Allen
#5. I would like to involve myself in some black music. I would like to do some blues and some gospel music. I want to try stuff from other genres and try to widen my musical base.
Greg Lake
#6. And whether you're drawn to gospel music or church music or honky-tonk music, it informs your character and it informs your talent.
Bruce Springsteen
#7. Gospel music played a huge part of my life. I was too scared to audition for the choir, but through my own music, I was also able to find spirituality for myself.
Leon Bridges
#8. My raps are a decision, rabble rousing, spiritual, like gospel music. I don't want to dance. We have so many things to deal with, we need to talk straight up and down.
Tupac Shakur
#9. I grew up in the 1930s Great Depression when many families struggled to make ends meet, and in an area where old-fashioned country gospel music was popular. Later, as an adult with a more mature outlook on Christianity, I realized that a lot of that music was rather shallow.
Jerry Bridges
#10. Gospel music is never pessimistic, it's never 'oh my god, its all going down the tubes', like the blues often is.
Brian Eno
#11. My interest in gospel music and liturgical art and Biblically-inspired literature has nothing to do with organised religion and everything to do with human beings trying to figure out their place on this planet.
Moby
#12. There is a sound that comes from gospel music that doesn't come from anything else. It is a sound of peace. It is a sound of, 'I'm going to make it through all of this.'
Yolanda Adams
#13. My influences were mostly gospel. So I was playing my twisted Jewish equivalent of gospel music over his twisted equivalent of rock and roll music. And it was a very excellent marriage.
Al Kooper
#14. Music was in the air when I was growing up. My siblings Katy, Dave and Phil were musical; my dad worked in inner-city New York where a musical revolution was taking place - folk music, rock n' roll, gospel music. My sister taught me to sing. My brothers taught me to play.
Sam Barry
#15. I think that one of Elvis' charms was that he could sing almost any kind of music. I am sure that in his heart, which I don't know what was there, but just from his singing I could feel that he was very partial to gospel music.
Patti Page
#16. I'm not ashamed, or embarrassed. I'm happy that I grew up listening to gospel music and came from where I came from. I feel like I have a history and a story. That's what I am and that's what I'll always be from. I was never running away from it.
Katy Perry
#17. I'm a big fan of gospel music, and you cannot be a fan of rock and roll, you cannot be a fan of country western music, and you can't really be a fan of jazz without listening to a lot of music that's religious.
Penn Jillette
#18. Plantation gospel music was the stuff I fell in love with when I was a kid - these beautiful melodies and these hard, hard stories.
Bobby Womack
#19. My heart is still there in gospel music. It never left ... I'm gonna make a gospel record and tell Jesus I cannot bear these burdens alone.
Aretha Franklin
#20. I liked blues from the time my mother used to take me to church. I started to listen to gospel music, so I liked that. But I had an aunt at that time, my mother's aunt who bought records by people like Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and a few others.
B.B. King
#21. I feel most alive when I'm singing along to old gospel music.
Judith Hill
#22. Since I was two years old, all I knew was gospel music. That music became such a part of my life it was as natural as dancing. A way to escape from the problems. And my way of release.
Elvis Presley
#23. I've always said that if I could have made a living someway in gospel music, I would have loved to had that break, but it never was offered to me, a job in that field, so naturally, I got lost on that other road.
George Jones
#24. It's quite interesting that in my growing up I had several influences. We had gospel music on campus. R&B music was, of course, the community, and radio was country music. So I can kind of see where all the influences came from.
Lionel Richie
#25. I would think, to me, growing up in the south, growing up with all the gospel music, singing in the church and having that rhythm and blues - the blues background was my big inspiration.
Jackie DeShannon
#26. Gospel music to me has always been a balm for the soul. It has been able to usher in the spirit, usher in worship, true worship and praise, healing. I find the music to be very good at healing and the passion, you know, which is a testimony being told in song.
Kim Fields
#27. People love gospel music. It's calming. It's soothing. It gets right to the point of whatever you're dealing with.
Yolanda Adams
#28. Gospel music always relaxes me and calms my nerves.
Gabby Douglas
#29. I was definitely inspired by gospel music, or old-school R&B; I got into some Good God gospel compilations.
Yannis Philippakis
#30. Gospel music is so ingrained into my bones. I can't do a concert without singing a gospel song. It's what I was raised on.
Johnny Cash
#31. I guess when I got into my preteens, I turned about 12 and I decided to sing R&B, because I felt like one day there were some things I felt like I would want to say, that I couldn't say with gospel music.
Jazmine Sullivan
#32. Gospel music in those days of the early 1930s was really taking wing. It was the kind of music colored people had left behind them down South and they liked it because it was just like a letter from home.
Mahalia Jackson
#33. I'm very interested in religion and different religions, and I know quite a lot about it. I love gospel music, and I love going to churches, but the one drawback is that I don't actually believe in God. And it is quite a handicap, you know.
Nick Lowe
#34. If you don't die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty of minutiae, the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean, and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music, or Neil Young.
Anne Lamott
#35. I'm associated with gospel music in the minds of millions of people.
Pat Boone
#36. I think the amazing thing about gospel music is that not only does it lift up the death and resurrection of our Lord, which is consistent with the Gospel, but it is uniquely communicated depending upon the generation.
T.D. Jakes
#37. From the church I received a spiritual foundation that has kept me balanced. From the gospel music I learned the importance of singing with emotion- authentic emotion- not contrived- which has made my music endearing.
Oleta Adams
#38. Gospel music is the purest thing there is on this earth.
Elvis Presley
#39. Rock and roll came in and changed my life and changed the whole music scene forever, and then I grew to love R&B and Motown and all black music, gospel music. But I never dismiss any form of music. I listen to everything.
Elton John
#40. Now we have so many different genres of music, it's amazing to me. Even in the gospel music arena, you've got hip-hop, you got contemporary, urban contemporary, you got traditional, you got neo-soul gospel, you've got all of these different things.
Marvin Sapp
#41. I have been singing gospel music since I was four years old.
Marvin Sapp
#42. My childhood was limited to mostly gospel music. We didn't have, like, a lot of records in our house, you know. It was like my grandparents who raised me. They were pretty old-fashioned in their religious ways, so it was like church, church, church, school, school, school.
Faith Evans
#43. I was asked to sing with Mavis Staples on a gospel compilation called 'Oh Happy Day.' And, you know, other than being totally intimidated at the prospect of singing with Mavis, I was honored. I don't really have much of a background in gospel music.
Patty Griffin
#44. I used to turn to nature and animals a lot. And fishing. I spend time still with my Bible and the gospel music, and I still have to feed the animals! But my wife and daughter have brought me a world of perspective when I'm feeling just a little "extra important."
Brandi Carlile
#45. Gospel music allows us to become closer to God and closer to each other.
Marvin Sapp
#46. Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say.
Mahalia Jackson
#48. Whether looking at pop music, hip-hop or R&B, it's rare to find an artist who hasn't been touched or affected by the power and soul of gospel music. In fact, many of today's popular artists such as Whitney Houston, John Legend, and Katy Perry started their careers in the church choir.
Marvin Sapp
#49. That's the fantasy dream project, to collaborate with someone who preaches the gospel of art through music.
Frances Stark
#50. I enjoy bluegrass, folk, gospel, and classical. I don't listen to music when I write. I sometimes listen to music just before I sit down to write.
Kent Haruf
#51. Growing up with country, R&B, gospel, and classical music from my grandmother and pop, Tuskegee was the perfect melting pot for my influences as a writer.
Lionel Richie
#52. For all of us involved in preaching the gospel, performing music, publishing Christian materials, and all the rest, there is an uncomfortable message here: Jesus is not terribly impressed with religious commercialism
Jim Cymbala
#53. We weren't allowed to have secular music in the house growing up. I was home-schooled, and gospel was the only choice we had.
John Legend
#54. The music that I have always liked has always been more rooted in anger or sadness or alienation or any of those inspirational factors that drove rock'n'roll, gospel, and blues. I tend not to value a more pop aesthetic.
DJ Shadow
#55. Well, I loved singing in the chorus, and there was some connection for me between gospel and choral music.
Neil Diamond
#56. I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.
Tommy Shaw
#57. I want to live with that sense with the music I make, with the art I make, with the way I love my kids, with the way I am a father and a husband and a friend and a follower of Christ, I want to live with reckless abandonment to the truth of the Gospel.
Steven Curtis Chapman
#58. Of course when you are a kid you listen to what your parents had around. A lot of gospel, jazz. Now when I started to listen to music on my own it was around the time of the birth of rock and roll. Shortly thereafter I started to get into more blues and more traditional rootsy American music.
Jorma Kaukonen
#59. Don't go where it is all fine music and grand talk and beautiful architecture; those things will neither fill anybody's stomach, nor feed his soul. Go where the gospel is preached, the gospel that really feeds your soul, and go often.
Charles Spurgeon
#60. I grew up with the Blind Boys' music. My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center. I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.
Ben Harper
#61. From the spiritual came the blues, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues. I heard all of that music growing up, and that has influenced how I approached classical music. I'm sure of it.
Kathleen Battle
#62. Music is given of God to further his purposes. Sweet melodies mellow the souls of men and help prepare them for the gospel. After men receive the truth, songs of praise to Deity help to sanctify and cleanse their souls.
Bruce R. McConkie
#63. I wasn't allowed to listen to a lot of music growing up. It wasn't until I started to make my gospel record when I was around 14 or 15 that I started to be exposed to more outside influences.
Katy Perry
#64. What I consider to be the barometer for what is a rock artist and what is not, is somebody who has a certain element of blues, even a hint of soul or blues music, derivative of African-American blues, folk, spiritual, or gospel.
Ian Astbury
#65. I am not of the opinion that all the arts shall be crushed to earth and perish through the Gospel, as some bigoted persons pretend, but would willingly see them all, and especially music, servants of Him who gave and created them.
Martin Luther
#66. I always loved Sam Cooke, because he seemed very versatile. He sang gospel, soul, blues, pop music.
Aaron Neville
#67. Seeing people catch a feeling in their spirit and sprint the aisles of the church while my cousins played driving, uplifting gospel stuck with me. I let that same feeling wash over me when I experience and perform music.
Lizzo
#68. One of my dad's friends from the music industry came over to our house one time and heard me sing, and he said, 'She should audition for this role I have!' So I did! It was a movie called 'The Gospel,' which I did when I was five. That was when I was like, 'I want to do this acting thing!'
China Anne McClain
#69. I only hope that one day, America will recognize what the rest of the world already has known, that our indigenous music - gospel, blues, jazz and R&B - is the heart and soul of all popular music; and that we cannot afford to let this legacy slip into obscurity, I'm telling you.
Quincy Jones
#70. Dick Clark's 'American Bandstand' spread the gospel of American pop music and teenage style that transcended the regional boundaries of our country and united a youth culture that eventually spread its message throughout the entire world.
John Oates
#71. The singing of our sacred hymns, written by the servants of God, has a powerful effect in converting people to the principles of the Gospel, and in promoting peace and spiritual growth.
Heber J. Grant
#72. Music just runs in my family. My dad and my uncles are a gospel quartet, Latimore Brothers. They've been doing their thing ever since I was a kid, so I just kind of grew up around that.
Jacob Latimore
#73. I play classical music almost exclusively. I never mastered jazz or gospel in the way that my mother did. She was a fine improvisational musician. I pretty much have to stick to what's written on the page.
Condoleezza Rice
#74. It is secular spiritual music, the gospel blues. It's music from the heart instead of the head.
Charlie Musselwhite
#75. Instrumental music was only tolerated, on account of the times and of the people. But in gospel times, we must not have recourse to these, unless we wish to destroy the evangelical perfection, and to obscure the meridian light, which we enjoy in Christ our Lord.
John Calvin
#76. If kids say I'm just a gospel rapper, I won't be able to get in their cars.
MC Hammer
#77. What isn't on my iPod playlist? I have very eclectic tastes. Jazz. Classic Rock. Hip Hop. Ska. Soul. Electronica.World Music. Funk. Blues. Chamber Music. Reggaeton. Gospel. And a whole lot of Prince. (I am a Minnesota gal through and through.)
Michele Norris
#78. A faithful worship leader magnifies the greatness of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit by skillfully combining God's Word with music, thereby motivating the gathered church to proclaim the gospel, to cherish God's presence, and to live for God's glory.
Bob Kauflin
#79. I believe that gospel is more than just a sound, it's a way of life. I don't really have any shame to talk about spirituality in my music. A lot of your favorite soul songs started out in gospel.
Leon Bridges
#80. I was raised on gospel. I remember hip-hop and rock music were secular, so basically, for my first ten years living in Detroit, I was on gospel. But when I moved to Houston, that's when I got to open up my musical horizons.
Lizzo
#81. I first got interested in music as a toddler by my childhood babysitter, Rosetta Atkins. She taught me how to sing by imitating the voices on the gospel radio station she listened to - both men and women's voices.
Wendy Starland
#82. The Band is probably the ultimate example of people taking all kinds of music, from gospel to blues to mountain music to folk music to on and on and on and on and putting them all in this big pot and mixing up a new gumbo.
Robbie Robertson
#83. The churches weren't going to accept me looking like a street person with long hair and faded jeans. They did not like the music I was recording. And I had no desire to preach the gospel to the converted.
Larry Norman
#84. I think in music there is just something inherently spiritual in singing together and harmonizing, and gospel is the truest form of that.
Luke Pritchard
#85. When I first got into the music scene, I was inspired by different songwriters. I like to dress from the '50s and '60s. I like to paint a picture of that era through my music and clothes. I am inspired by a whole a lot of things, from doo-wop to gospel and soul music.
Leon Bridges
#86. I think a great artist should be able to create any style, any form, anything from rock to pop to gospel to spiritual, just wonderful music where everybody can sing it ...
Michael Jackson
#87. Rock n' Roll came from the slaves singing gospel in the fields. Their lives were hell and they used music to lift out of it, to take them away. That's what rock n' roll should do - take you to a better place.
Meat Loaf
#88. The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It's in New Orleans music, it's in jazz, it's in country music, it's in gospel.
Wynton Marsalis
#89. I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best - of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything.
Maya Angelou
#90. My father had played cornet, although I never saw him play it. I found his mouthpiece when I was a kid. I used to buzz it. And my mother played piano and sang in the church choir for different functions. So there was always music in the house, jazz, gospel, or whatever. Especially jazz records.
Johnny Griffin
#92. Country music is so related to gospel. It seems I could go down that road pretty easily.
Dionne Warwick
#93. (3) Singing can help us use words to demonstrate and express our unity, which means singing songs that unite us instead of divide us, recognizing that musical creativity in the church has functional limits and that it is ultimately the gospel, not music, that unites us in Christ.
John Piper
#94. If our lives are out of tune with the music of the gospel, we must tune them up.
Wilford W. Andersen
#95. The music I love to sing would have to be gospel - it just uplifts me, it takes me to a really good place.
Jacob Lusk
#96. I come from an African Caribbean background. I've been influenced by a reggae church music style, contemporary gospel, and rock all fused together.
Laura Mvula
#97. If you can't prove it in words, it ain't gospel. Soul music is just an expression of the mind, but your spirit has to be made alive - that's the real part, the part that God speaks to.
Andrae Crouch
#98. I've grown up on gospel and blues music, and now it's a huge part of who I am.
Benjamin Booker
#99. I enjoy listening to contemporary rock on the college stations while I'm taking long walks, love gospel and soul music, am fascinated by hip-hop and rap as the new kind of urban 'beat' poetry and, come to think of it, find something interesting about just any kind of music.
Oscar Hijuelos
#100. The most effective preaching of the gospel is when it is accompanied by beautiful, appropriate music.
Harold B. Lee
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