(b Berlin, MD, 7 July 1851/59; d Philadelphia, 26 July 1933). American composer of gospel songs. He worked as a janitor at the Bainbridge Street Methodist Church, Philadelphia, while preparing for the Methodist ministry at the Brandywine Institute and through correspondence with the Boston Theological Seminary. In 1885 he passed the ministerial examination and began a series of pastorates in New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, and in 1902 became pastor of the Bainbridge Street Church. A very popular preacher, he frequently made nationwide tours and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Bennett College, North Carolina.
Tindley began composing gospel songs as early as 1901 (I’ll overcome someday and What are they doing in heaven) and continued to publish works that captured the musical interest of the black religious community until 1926. His compositions draw on the chorus–refrain tradition of black spirituals and are characterized by memorable melodies couched in simple harmony. Among his more than 50 compositions that remain popular are We’ll understand it better by and by (1905), Stand by me (1905), Here am I, send me (1911), Leave it there (1916) and Let Jesus fix it for you (1923).
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I.V. Jackson: Afro-American Religious Music: a Bibliography and Catalogue of Gospel Music (Westport, CT, 1979)
R.H. Jones: Charles Albert Tindley: Prince of Preachers (Nashville, TN, 1982)
H.C. Boyer: ‘Charles Albert Tindley: Progenitor of African American Gospel Music’, We’ll Understand it Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers, ed. B.J. Reagon (Washington DC, 1992), 53–78 [incl. list of works]
B.J. Reagon: ‘Searching for Tindley’, ibid., 37–52
HORACE CLARENCE BOYER