Gospel Playlist One

This was a good playlist. Not being a huge fan of gospel/religious music, I thought the songs were just going to be the typical "praise the Lord" kind of stuff. While that was certainly the main idea of most of the songs, I was suprised to find that I actually enjoyed most of the songs. I realized that, culturally, they are timeless pieces of art because they managed to capture perfectly the environment of the individual times they were recorded in. This is what interested me the most.
Also, Lyle Lovett's "Church" (which IS an amazing song by the way) shows how even contemporary music takes inspiration from roots music. Lyle Lovett could have been easily influenced by old time recordings and by the musical preservation efforts of people like Moses Asch. I think incorporating "Church" in the playlist was a great way to show the timelessness of the music.
I enjoyed the acapella and harmonizing aspects of the music, we haven't listened to a lot of that before. I also noticed a recurrent theme in the harsh belief of "judgement" in the songs. Religion was obviously not a think that was taken lightly during those times.
I also enjoyed "Dry Bones" by Bascom Lamar Lunsford because of the awesome banjo and "O Day" by Bess Jones and The Sea Island Singers because the percussion and repetition reminded me of the influence of Negro Spirituals on more contemporary gospel music.
I noticed in "Moaner Let's Go Down In The Valley" by Delta Big Four a common melody which I had heard before. I believe it is from Alison Krauss' "Down to the River to Pray" (I'm not entirely sure if that's the name of the song) that was O Brother Where Art Thou. I'm interested to know now if Alison Krauss' song is a traditional melody that is just a spinoff on the Delta Big Four song.