Artists like Bessie Jones

Clara Mae Ward was an American gospel singer who achieved great artistic and commercial success during the 1940s and 1950s, as leader of The Famous Ward Singers. A gifted singer and arranger, Ward adopted the lead-switching style, previously used primarily by male gospel quartets, creating opportunities for spontaneous improvisation and vamping by each member of the group, while giving virtuoso singers such as Marion Williams the opportunity to perform the lead vocal in songs such as "Surely, God Is Able", "How I Got Over" and "Packin' Up". The album Surely God Is Able by The Famous Ward Singers was the first by a gospel group to exceed sales of 500,000 units.

Robert Hicks, known as Barbecue Bob, was an American Piedmont blues musician who played 12 string guitar which was popular in the Atlanta, Georgia, area at the time. A record talent scout gave him his nickname because he worked as a cook in a barbecue restaurant. One of the two existing photographs of him shows him playing his guitar and wearing a full length, white apron and cook's hat.

Thomas Andrew Dorsey was an American musician, composer, and Christian evangelist influential in the development of early blues and 20th-century gospel music. He penned 3,000 songs, a third of them gospel, including "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and "Peace in the Valley". Recordings of these sold millions of copies in both gospel and secular markets in the 20th century.