BOB ABERNETHY: Since the times of slavery, African Americans have expressed their spirituality through music. It began as simple folk songs and evolved into the energetic performances that define gospel music today. It's as important to the worship service as the preacher's sermon. The themes of salvation, emancipation, and deliverance still dominate the songs, as they have [for] centuries. We spoke to Thomas Dixon Tyler of the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, DC, about gospel's significance to him.

THOMAS DIXON TYLER (director of Music Ministries, Metropolitan Baptist Church): Gospel music is a free express. It's not just a collection of words thrown together, but it's telling a story.

The energy of gospel music comes from history. Gospel music ... is an evolutionary experience from the old camp meeting song and even before that, from the oral tradition. They [African slaves] spoke before they wrote. When they were brought over here, there was a passion in them to keep their history alive. They told their story, and they told it in song because they were a people of music.

When you move on to the, the integration of the Negro into mainstream ... society, they adopted the white man's religion, but they fashioned it and shaped it to meet their own personal need[s].