by Whitney Youngs

The House of God Church in Orange, New Jersey, is a brick building with a nave roof and lancet stained-glass windows sandwiched between two houses on William Street. The church can trace its history to the first Pentecostal Holiness church in America, a Pentecostal denomination founded by Mary Magdalena Lewis Tate, a black evangelist woman who began preaching the gospel in her home of Tennessee—soon crossing state lines into Illinois  and Kentucky—and eventually founded the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth in 1903.

According to “Black Fire Reader: A Documentary Resource on African American Pentecostalism,” edited by Estrelda Y. Alexander, “At her consecration, Tate became the first woman to serve as presiding bishop of a nationally recognized denomination. That body saw itself as divinely ordained of God to restore the church to its New Testament purity, and Tate imposed a rigid standard of personal piety on its members. […] Tate’s importance, however, stems from the fact that at least seven denominations can trace their roots back to the original body that she founded.” 

Bishop Tate died in 1930 and Bishop Mary Keith was ordained to head the church, which split into three dominions. By the  late 1940s, the church had established parishes in 21 states and on the island of Jamaica.  

Throughout the 1930s, two branches, the Keith and Jewell dominions, welcomed a new musical instrument into their congregations. Brothers Troman and Willie Eason introduced the church to the lap steel guitar as a substitute to the organ, the latter, an instrument many churches could not afford. 

As part of the Keith dominion, the church on William Street embraced the instrument with no frets known as “sacred steel” and became the locale where Robert Randolph, 38, got his start playing the lap guitar in the Pentecostal tradition at the age of 17. 

“It has always been this beautiful instrument that allows you to get all of these colors, chords and sounds out of it,” says Randolph. “In our church, growing up, playing the sacred steel, having a band in church, we were always taught to speak together, the lady playing the tambourine talks to the guitar, the drummer talks to the singers, and we are all talking to the congregation.”

The Eason brothers toured other congregations, and Willie even recorded 18 songs in the 1940s and 50s, but the sacred steel remained close to the church, but when it was introduced to a wider audience by players like Aubrey Ghent and his father Henry Nelson, the music didn’t much stray from gospel. 

But once Randolph began gigging at clubs in New York City, he knew the sacred steel could thrive in secular music, so he began to move away from the church—like so many black singers and musicians before him—which initially led to disapproval among stalwart congregants. 

“It’s happened to everybody throughout history: Aretha, Whitney, Sly, Marvin, Ray,” explains Randolph on leaving the church.  “It’s just sort of the history because diehard church people are just like that. But after a while after people start seeing your success, and they are proud of you.”

Randolph and the Family Band recorded its first album, “Live at the Wetlands,” in 2002 and subsequently completed five studio albums, including the latest, “Got Soul,” released this year. 

“A soulful person is what’s really in their heart and their background and what they want to get out of their soul,” explains Randolph on his definition of soul. “For me, my background is coming up through church and inspiring people, so anybody that connects with that sort of soul, the inner-inspirational soul, that’s what the record is trying to do.  I hope to connect with somebody who wants to come on that ride and be inspired to love, to dance and to just be happy about life.”

Randolph, whose father was a deacon, grew up in a strict, religious family; the music played in the house was gospel, so his exposure to secular music happened on the QT. 

“If it wasn’t hip hop or R&B that I heard on the streets, then I had to sneak and listen,” recalls Randolph. “It was all gospel music, no blues. I might have heard of  guys like Muddy Waters or Buddy Guy or Jimi Hendrix, but I was never allowed to listen to them. I didn’t buy an Allman Brothers Band record until I was 20 years old.”

Before forming the Family Band, Randolph joined The Word—an improvisational collective of musicians that combined gospel with funk, jazz, the blues and rock ’n’ roll—to record its self-titled studio album.  Robert Randolph and the Family Band’s live shows, best described as rock ’n’ roll, revivalist church services, comprise songs aimed at uplifting crowds since many of the band’s tunes contain fundamental inspirations from gospel that incorporate musical patterns like call and response.  

“Sometimes when I’m on the road, I will go and visit other churches, that’s sort of the religious part I can’t get out,” says Randolph. “Even sometimes when I’m on stage, we will be playing a song, and our version is sort of the uplifting version. Ray Charles comes from the gospel church background and still makes you feel inspirational even though he’s singing about a woman. The call and response is in many church songs and we want to bring that message and vibe and sound to the audience.”