Peace Be Still: How James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir Created a Gospel Classic

"In September 1963, the Angelic Choir of the First Baptist Church of Nutley, New Jersey, teamed up with rising gospel star James Cleveland to record Peace Be Still. It was the collaboration's third live in-service album, but no one could have anticipated the enduring success of Peace Be Still and its haunting title track. Hundreds of thousands of albums were sold almost exclusively in the African American community, without special advertising or marketing strategies. The Angelic Choir was comprised of amateur singers from the Newark area whose main purpose was to raise enough money to construct a brand new church. Peace Be Still put the Angelic Choir on the national charts, set them to touring the country with top gospel artists, and eventually earned them a Grammy nomination. Peace Be Still continues to sell today, and recording gospel music in front of a live audience, then novel, is now ubiquitous. Despite its place as a touchstone in the history of recorded African American gospel music, little has been written about the album. Marovich's Peace Be Still will be the first to do so. Based on extensive oral interviews and in-depth archival research, the book explores the many questions surrounding the album and title track. What made this particular album stand out? Why did it surpass all the others in sales? What was it about "Peace Be Still" that captured the attention of so many gospel music fans and churchgoers, and set church choirs across the country to singing it? Was "Peace Be Still" a coded response to the Civil Rights Movement? Besides shining a spotlight on the contributions of everyday people to commercial gospel music, Peace Be Still also will stimulate greater interest in the gospel and church choir phenomenon, one that only rarely receives academic attention"--