“The story of the blues is a story that has been told a number of times … as far as black music as a whole is concerned it is a half-story. This emphasis has drawn attention away from other important vocal traditions, particularly the sacred vocal traditions, from the song-sermons of the Baptist and Sanctified preachers to the gospel songs of the church congregations and of the ‘jack-leg’ preachers and evangelists”.

– Paul Oliver, Songsters and Saints – Vocal Traditions on Race Records, Cambridge University Press, 1984.