16. Ain't No Devil Psalms 17. Go Tell It On the Mountain/Amazing Grace Psalms

Sandy Reed: top
Sharilyn Bell: second
Paul Tillman: second
Allen Bell: top
Ronald Teague: bottom and keyboards
Marcus Beets: drums

African American Gospel music has been an important cultural expression in communities throughout Iowa. Situated primarily within urban areas across the state, vibrant gospel groups perform in churches from Council Bluffs to Davenport and Waterloo. A community's church, thus, can be seen not only as a center for worship and religious expression, but also as part of a vast network of churches that build spiritual and social connections across Iowa's African-American communities.

Psalms is a gospel group from the Cedar Rapids area. Psalms' members began singing together as a family over twenty years ago under the tutelage of their aunt, Doris Akers, a well-known recording artist who composed over 500 gospel songs. The present group's members have spent most of their lives in the Cedar Rapids area, but their families originally came from Missouri in the late 1940s. The group is currently preserving the family tradition by directing Children of Psalms, comprised of ten of their children and grandchildren who frequently perform with Psalms in both religious and secular contexts.

The gospel group performs in contemporary as well as traditional gospel styles, but Sandy Reed regards their traditional selections as the most popular with audiences. The selections presented on Iowa State Fare represent both styles. "Ain't No Devil" is an example of a contemporary gospel song that fuses a jazz-influenced style of gospel singing with a rhythm and blues beat and then concludes with two verses of Sandy Reed's gospel rap. Sharilyn Bell sings the lead with Allen Bell, who adds falsetto over the rhythm and blues beat with a contemporary twist, while the chorus answers in the call/response style. "Go Tell It on the Mountain" is an African-American spiritual dating from the early 19th century that is also sung as a Christmas carol in African-American and Euro-American communities. The group sings the traditional spiritual with a smooth and tasteful key modulation in the first selection of a medley that concludes with "Amazing Grace." Psalms' rendition uses a steady, driving beat as a foundation, and the group's innovative harmonies strikingly complement Paul Tillman's freely improvised solo.