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50 free Gospel Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
These gospel music trivia questions and answers run from the revival hymns of Fanny Crosby and Ira Sankey to the urban contemporary sound of Kirk Franklin and Tasha Cobbs. In between are the people who built the genre: Thomas Dorsey and the song he wrote in grief, Mahalia Jackson's first two-million seller, Sister Rosetta Tharpe's electric guitar, the Soul Stirrers and the young Sam Cooke, the Blind Boys of Alabama, James Cleveland, Andrae Crouch, the Clark Sisters and the Winans. There are questions on the songs everyone knows, from Amazing Grace and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot to Oh Happy Day and Precious Lord, on the crossover records by Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley, and on the awards: the Doves, the Stellars and the gospel Grammys. About a third are easy for anyone who grew up in church, a third are medium, and the rest are for choir directors and record collectors. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and the biographies it cites, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
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Q 01Which 'father of gospel music' wrote 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' and 'Peace in the Valley'?
Thomas A. Dorsey
He wrote about 3,000 songs in all, a third of them gospel, after years playing blues piano as 'Georgia Tom'.
Q 02Dorsey wrote 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in 1932 after which personal tragedy?
His wife and infant son died
Nettie Dorsey died in childbirth and the baby followed 24 hours later, the same week Dorsey co-founded what became the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses.
Q 03Before turning to gospel, Dorsey toured as pianist for which blues singer?
Ma Rainey
Billed as 'Georgia Tom', he then cut hokum records with guitarist Tampa Red before his spiritual awakening.
Q 04Dorsey served as music director of which Chicago congregation for 50 years?
Pilgrim Baptist Church
He introduced improvisation, clapping and shouting to services at a time when they were widely condemned as unrefined.
Q 05Mahalia Jackson sang 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' at whose funeral in April 1968?
Martin Luther King Jr.
His last words before he was shot were a request that Ben Branch play it at that night's meeting.
Q 06Which 1947 Mahalia Jackson record sold two million copies and reached No. 2, both firsts for gospel?
Move On Up a Little Higher
The song was recorded in two parts, one for each side of the 78; it sold 50,000 copies in Chicago alone.
Q 07Mahalia Jackson was born and raised in poverty in which city?
New Orleans
She moved to Chicago as a teenager and joined the Johnson Singers, one of the earliest gospel groups.
Q 08Which blues singer's style did Mahalia Jackson adapt to hymns, according to her biographers?
Bessie Smith
As a girl she sang along to Smith's records while scrubbing floors for her Aunt Duke.
Q 09Mahalia Jackson became the first gospel artist to sign with which major label in 1954?
Columbia Records
Mitch Miller offered her $50,000 a year; the label later added orchestras and electric guitars that pushed her toward light pop.
Q 10Which song did Mahalia Jackson sing at Dr. King's request at the 1963 March on Washington?
I've Been 'Buked and I've Been Scorned
Legend has it that moments later she called out to King to 'tell them about the dream'.
Q 11Which guitar-playing gospel star of the 1930s and 40s is known as 'the Godmother of Rock and Roll'?
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
She was among the first popular artists to use heavy distortion on an electric guitar, and influenced Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis.
Q 12Which English clergyman and former slave-ship sailor published 'Amazing Grace' in 1779?
John Newton
A violent storm at sea in 1748 began his conversion; he later supported the abolition movement.
Q 13Wallace Willis, probable composer of 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot', was a freedman of which Native American nation?
Choctaw
The Fisk Jubilee Singers and Hampton Singers spread it; the 1894 Standard Quartette recording is the earliest known.
Q 21The Blind Boys of Alabama broke into the mainstream via which 1983 Obie-winning stage musical?
The Gospel at Colonus
The show reset Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus as a Black Pentecostal service.
Q 22Where did the Golden Gate Quartet play Hammond's From Spirituals to Swing concert in 1938?
Carnegie Hall
The group moved to Paris in 1959; a young Elvis, then in the Army, sought them out backstage there.
Q 23James Cleveland, the 'King of Gospel', was the first gospel musician to receive what honour?
A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Q 14The Fisk Jubilee Singers, who took spirituals to concert halls, were students in which city?
Nashville
The first group was organised in 1871 to raise money for the college; their 1909 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' is in the National Recording Registry.
Q 15The term 'gospel song' first appeared in print in 1874 in a songbook by which composer?
Philip Bliss
Bliss then teamed with Sankey on the Gospel Hymns series from 1875, songbooks still found in libraries today.
Q 16Which blind 'Queen of Gospel Song Writers' wrote more than 8,000 hymns including 'Blessed Assurance'?
Fanny Crosby
Ira Sankey credited her hymns for much of the success of the Moody revivals.
Q 17Ira D. Sankey was the singing partner of which revivalist preacher from 1870 until 1899?
Dwight L. Moody
Moody heard Sankey sing at a convention and recruited him; the pair campaigned across America and Britain.
Q 18A hymn by Philadelphia minister Charles Albert Tindley underlies which civil rights anthem?
We Shall Overcome
The Philadelphia minister, known as 'The Prince of Preachers', also wrote 'Take Your Burden to the Lord and Leave It There'.
Q 19Sam Cooke was lead singer of which gospel quartet before going secular in 1956?
The Soul Stirrers
He recorded his first pop song under the alias Dale Cook to avoid the stigma, but his voice gave him away.
Q 20The Blind Boys of Alabama were founded in 1939 in which town?
Talladega
Their cover of Tom Waits's 'Way Down in the Hole' was the theme for the first season of The Wire.
He founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America in 1969 and won four Grammys for his mass-choir arrangements.
Q 24Aretha Franklin's live gospel album Amazing Grace was recorded in 1972 at a Baptist church in which city?
Los Angeles
James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir backed her at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church; the film of it was finally released in 2018.
Q 25As a child at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Aretha Franklin made her solo debut with which hymn?
Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me
Her father C. L. Franklin was the church's famous pastor; she began singing solos there just after her mother's death.
Q 26All three of Elvis Presley's competitive Grammy wins were for what kind of recordings?
Gospel
The 1967 album How Great Thou Art won the first; the title track's 1974 live version won the third and last.
Q 27Dorsey's 'Peace in the Valley' became a million-seller for which country singer in 1951?
Red Foley
Elvis matched the feat with his own million-selling version in 1957.
Q 28The Edwin Hawkins Singers' 1969 hit 'Oh Happy Day' arranges a hymn from which century?
The 1700s
Philip Doddridge wrote the words in 1755; the recording has sold more than 7 million copies, the second best-selling gospel song ever.
Q 29Who sang lead on the Edwin Hawkins Singers' 'Oh Happy Day'?
Dorothy Combs Morrison
The choir began as the Northern California State Youth Choir of the Church of God in Christ; a San Francisco rock DJ made the record a hit.
Q 30Andrae Crouch wrote 'The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power' at what age?
15
His group The Disciples, with Billy Preston on keyboards, were the first to record it; Crouch later arranged choirs for 'Man in the Mirror' and 'Like a Prayer'.