Includes bibliographical references (pages 389-399) and indexes.

part 1. Roots. Got on my traveling shoes: black sacred music and the great migration -- "When the fire fell": the sanctified church contribution to Chicago gospel music -- Sacred music in transition: Charles Henry Pace and the Pace Jubilee Singers -- Turn your radio on: Chicago sacred radio broadcast pioneers -- "Someday, somewhere": the formation of the gospel nexus -- Sweeping through the city: Thomas A. Dorsey and the gospel nexus (1932-1933) -- Across this land and country: new songs for a new era (1933-1939) -- From Birmingham to Chicago: the great migration of the gospel quartet -- part 2. Branches. Sing a gospel song: the 1940s, part one -- "If it's in music--we have it": the fertile crescent of gospel music publishing -- "Move on up a little higher": the 1940s, part two -- Postwar gospel quartets: "rock stars of religious music" -- The gospel caravan: midcentury melodies -- "He could just put a song on his fingers": second-generation gospel choirs -- "God's got a television": gospel music comes to the living room -- "Tell it like it is": songs of social significance -- One of these mornings: Chicago gospel at the crossroads -- Appendix A. 1920s African American sacred music recordings made in Chicago -- Appendix B. African American sacred music recordings made in Chicago, 1930-1941.

"This work is by no means an exhaustively detailed study of gospel music in Chicago. Its intent is to chronicle the development of Chicago gospel music during its first five decades, from pioneers such Thomas Dorsey and Sallie Martin to the start of the contemporary gospel era of the 1970s, when the focus shifted from Chicago to California"--Introduction (page 7).