Ten years ago, the Recording Academy revamped several Grammy Awards categories including the five related to Christian/Gospel music as follows:
Pre-2014 Category Structure
- Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance
- Best Gospel Song
- Best Contemporary Christian Music Song
- Best Gospel Album
- Best Contemporary Christian Music Album
Post-2014 Category Structure
- Best Gospel Performance/Song
- Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song
- Best Gospel Album
- Best Contemporary Christian Music Album
- Best Roots Gospel Album
This was an exciting time for Southern Gospel artists/labels given the fact that the press release in 2014 specifically mentioned the genre in reference to the new Roots Gospel Album category:
Changes to the Field were made in the interest of clarifying the criteria, representing the current culture and creative DNA of the gospel and Contemporary Christian Music communities, and better reflecting the diversity and authenticity of today’s gospel music industry, including:
- Place the growing and increasingly popular rap and hip-hop music into the contemporary category where the industry and fans feel it belongs
- Provide a category for traditional Southern gospel and other “roots” gospel albums as both a protector of the heritage of this music and an acknowledgement of the growing interest and support of these genres
- Recognize the critical contribution of both songwriters and performers by combining songwriters and artists into the Best Gospel Performance/Song and Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song categories
- Appropriately integrate artists, songwriters, albums and songs along creative and aesthetic lines.
Fast forward to yesterday when the Academy announced the nominees for the 2025 Grammy Awards.
In the Roots Gospel Album category, there are two deserving nominees. One is Loving You by The Nelons, a well-known artist within the industry who had a decades-spanning history. We tragically lost three of the group members in a plane crash this past July. The other is The Gospel Sessions Vol. 2 by an incredibly talented bluegrass group called Authentic Unlimited.
Hopefully one of these two will win the Grammy.
Two albums (Rhapsody by Harlem Gospel Travelers and Church by Cory Henry) possibly deserve a Grammy nomination, but both are mis-categorized. Neither one of these is Country, Southern, Bluegrass, or Americana which are the stated styles that fall within THEIR OWN DEFINITION of the Roots Gospel category. Both should instead be competing in the Gospel Album category.
There’s also a nominated album by an artist named Mark D. Conklin that I was entirely surprised to discover came from the StowTown Records label. I’ve never heard of Conklin. I say this not as a casual fan of music, but as a person who posts a weekly article listing new and upcoming album releases. In other words, I go looking for new album release information on a routine basis, particularly from the major Southern Gospel labels including StowTown as well as Daywind, Gaither, and Crossroads. But I was entirely unaware that this album existed. Maybe it’s good enough for a Grammy, but if it’s that good, how has it stayed so far under the radar until now?
Compare this list of nominees to just a few years ago when the nominees in this same category were all immediately recognizable names. You’ll recognize them, too. Jason Crabb, Ernie Haase & Signature Sound, The Isaacs, The Martins, and Gordon Mote were the names announced in late 2018 as nominees in the Roots Gospel Album category for the 2019 Grammys.
What happened?
It might be easy to chalk it up to the fact that Grammy voters have traditionally been clueless when it comes to our music. I can remember a few instances 25-30 years ago where the Light Crust Doughboys were not only routinely nominated year after year in a Gospel category, but actually won it at least one time. This was when I was working as a music buyer in a Christian retail store. I never saw a single piece of publicity before or after the Grammy nominations for any of their products nor ever had a single customer who wanted to buy one.
While it’s proven to have been true in the past that Grammy voters are clueless, I’m not so sure that’s the reason for this year’s disrespect. They did, after all, pick nominees that mostly made sense in the 7 or 8 years that followed the category shifts in 2014.
So what happened?
Could it be that Southern Gospel as a genre has declined so far in popularity over the past couple of years that there simply aren’t five recordings good enough to be considered? I don’t believe that’s really the case, but it’s a question that needs to be asked in the spirit of fairness.
Is it perhaps possible that Southern Gospel labels have reached a point where they no longer see any value in courting Grammy voters with “for your consideration” ads and such? This seems more likely.
Has the cost of promoting the music labels want to sell become prohibitive? This could certainly be a factor as well.
Are Southern Gospel labels progressively becoming more and more complacent when it comes to doing their jobs? I’ve certainly observed this in recent years. I’ve lost count of the number of Friday release dates where I learn ON THAT DAY of a new album being released. Even the larger labels are frequently putting out new music with very little advanced publicity.
And yeah, I get it. Being nominated or even winning a Grammy perhaps means very little even to the top artists currently making the music we call Southern Gospel. It’s certainly not the ultimate goal, and if it ever was, it’s certainly not anymore.
Perhaps the labels just threw up their hands at some point and these nominees are the sad results.
Is there anyway to find out which recordings of Southern Gospel were submitted for consideration? I imagine lots of labels just don’t want to be bothered since there is little reward in winning. I believe the label, if it decides to submit an entry, gets to choose what category to put it in. If so, someone might choose a category where they think they have a better chance of winning. Many Grammys winners through the years, even in major categories, have been considered a joke.
The Recording Academy doesn’t make that list of submissions public. I expect the only way a non-member could find out is if a voting member agreed to share it.
A label might suggest the wrong category, sure, but there is a screening committee which is tasked with ensuring that submitted albums for consideration were in the proper category and met other eligibility requirements. That committee obviously failed to do that this year. You can find a description of the entire process at this link: https://www.recordingacademy.com/awards
I concur with your conclusions on this subject, and would like to see southern gospel music more effectively represented in the wider world of gospel music and music in general. (For example, why can’t we promote some “southern gospel” tunes to mainstream Christian radio? Why can’t we play some “mainstream” groups, such as Anne Wilson, on “Southern Gospel” radio? That is something I would like to see.)
I agree completely that “Rhapsody” has no place in this “Roots Gospel” category. Their music is certainly worth listening to, but I would say this particular group is benefiting from political and “diversity” considerations, both as it pertains to the subject of their songs and the personal “identification” of the members.
Having listened to the entire album “Church” by Cory Henry, I agree that it is more appropriately categorized in the “Gospel” category. However, I think it has at least a debatable right to be considered in the “Roots Gospel” category, due to the fact that the style of the music and almost all of the songs themselves are “rooted” in the sounds and rhythms of the historic black church of the south. It is a fact that traditional southern gospel music and so-called “urban gospel” music both sprang from the common roots of the country churches of the rural south, and shared many characteristics in the early years, including similar instrumentation and four-part harmony.
Relating to the previous comment, I think it would be a good idea for the Recording Academy to make the list of Grammy considerations public. I can’t think of any way this would harm the process.
Thanks for writing relevant gospel music content for 20 years! Godspeed!
Traditional Black Gospel is not Country, Southern Gospel, Bluegrass, or Americana. Those are the specific genres that have been grouped under Roots Gospel.
Traditional Black Gospel is Gospel, and as such, has its own category to distinguish it from Roots Gospel and Contemporary Christian.