More Than Bey: Precious Lord and Riff-Gate

That Professor Dorsey’s “Precious Lord,” a song that one could call (in Prof. Jennifer C. Lena’s words) a “genre ideal” of gospel, is, today, the site of an industry vs. fans controversy is pretty damn cool.

We have access to instant ethnography in social media. So hot reactions dressed up with subtle and clever graphics circulated in instantaneous response to “Precious Lord” on “music’s biggest night.” And they inspired a rapid exchange of “yes/no/this/that.” What’s it really all about? Is it the song itself, a lyrical supplication that opens with a blues move from I to IV just for the stank of it?

Is it because the song became a crucible for the vocal performance practices that would become foundational and generative to an American style of singing that has endured for almost 100 years? And still going strong: thank you Jazmine Sullivan. Or maybe it’s because, as Prof. Shana L. Redmond might say, “Precious Lord” has become an “anthem” not so much through designation but through social practice. Some, like Prof. Treva B Lindsey, have noticed a public flogging of that long-dead horse “the secular/sacred divide” in the discussions. And because gospel is, hands down, the most women-generated style of the entire 20th-century, this controversy is ripe for feminist critique. (If Dorsey is the father, it sho’ needed a mama, and then they had a whole lot of girls). Even the opera divas like Tiffany Jackson have been singing “Precious Lord” around lately. I’m riveted. And the memes are slaying me.

Here’s some great versions of this song, below.