Harris was modest but “he knew what he had done within the gospel field and he understood his influence,” Heilbut said. “Every quartet, all the quartets, turned to the style and the sound ...

Correction, July 6, 2012: This review misstated the title of Anthony Heilbut’s 1971 book on gospel. It is called The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times. (Return.) ...

Anthony Heilbut's book The Fan Who Knew Too ... SMITH: I wonder: You wrote the definitive overview of gospel music, The Gospel Sound, in 1971. You shaped the official story, and the book's still ...

If you haven't heard of Anthony Heilbut, it may be because his best work has been as sporadic as it has been definitive. "The Gospel Sound" (1971) is still the standard popular history of African ...

As the author of the definitive guide to the style, The Gospel Sound, Heilbut is perfectly placed to reveal gospel music’s inner workings. Not only has he chronicled its stars, but he’s ...

But whatever its meaning, gospel music helped create ... which he practically invented himself, the sound and the harmonies of The Soul Stirrers," Heilbut says. "She was sidewinding long before ...

Among his most notable contributions, he wrote the first serious history of black gospel in 1971, The Gospel Sound, and produced a series of well-received records by many of gospel’s golden-age ...

In this new collection of essays, Anthony Heilbut identifies himself as a ... the seminal popular book on the subject, “The Gospel Sound,” in 1971 — as well as an accomplished record producer.

In his impeccably researched collection of essays The Fan Who Knew Too Much: The Secret Closets of American Culture, Heilbut writes “I love gospel music ... love that can sound both romantic ...