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It is also important to note that gospel music is not just a form of music. Gospel and rhythm & blues are deeply rooted in the Sanctified church. Gospel music sheds an undeniable influence on R&B and rock and roll. 

Thomas Dorsey stretched the boundaries in his day to create great gospel music, choirs, and quartets. Talented vocalists have been singing these songs far beyond Dorsey's expectations. This looser style affected other black religious musical styles as well. The most popular groups in the 1930s were male quartets or small groups such as The Golden Gate Quartet, who sang, usually unaccompanied, in jubilee style, mixing careful harmonies, melodious singing, playful syncopation and sophisticated arrangements to produce a fresh, experimental style far removed from the more somber hymn-singing. These groups also absorbed popular sounds from pop groups such as The Mills Brothers and produced songs that mixed conventional religious themes, humor and social and political commentary. In the 1930s gospel music of the civil rights movement was referred to as the Black Gospel period because this was the most prosperous era for gospel music. The message of many of the civil rights activist was supported by the message gospel music was putting forth. 

The new gospel music composed by Dorsey and others proved very important among quartets, who began turning in a new direction. Quartet singers combined both individual virtuoso performances and innovative harmonic and rhythmic invention — what Ira Tucker Sr. and Paul Owens of the Hummingbirds called "trickeration" — that amplified both the emotional and musical intensity of their songs. 

While some groups, such as The Ward Singers, employed the sort of theatrics and daring group dynamics that male quartet groups used, for the most part women gospel singers relied instead on overpowering technique and dramatic personal witness to establish themselves. 

Gospel started to break way from the traditional church setting, with the choirs, and just singing hymns. Gospel artists began to perform more than minister; they started to add more genres to gospel music. Disco, funk, jazz and many mainstream genres became apart of gospel music. 

Younger audiences of Gospel music are attracted to music with rhythm and a groove and an urban contemporary sound. Gospel singers and siblings, BeBe (Benjamin) and CeCe (Cecilia) Winans and groups like Take 6 delivered music to their taste one album after another. Modern gospel songs are written in the subgenre of either praise or worship.

Gospel artists, who had been influenced by pop music trends for years, had a major influence on early rhythm and blues artists, particularly the "bird groups" such as the Orioles, the Ravens and the Flamingos, who applied gospel quartets' a cappella techniques to pop songs in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. Individual gospel artists, such as Sam Cooke, and secular artists who borrowed heavily from gospel, such as Ray Charles, James Brown, and James Booker, had an even greater impact later in the 1950s, helping to create soul music by bringing even more gospel to rhythm and blues. Elvis Presley was less known for his gospel but he was a gospel artist. Many of the most prominent soul artists, such as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett and Al Green, had roots in the church and gospel music and brought with them much of the vocal styles of artists such as Clara Ward and Julius Cheeks. During the 70's artist like Edwin Hawkins with the 1969 hit "Oh Happy Day", and Andre Crouch's hit "Take me Back" were big inspirations on Gospel Music. Secular songwriters often appropriated gospel songs, such as the Pilgrim Travelers' song "I've Got A New Home," or the Doc Pomus song Ray Charles turned into a hit "Lonely Avenue," or "Stand By Me," which Ben E. King and Leiber and Stoller adapted from a well-known gospel song, or Marvin Gaye's "Can I Get A Witness," which reworks traditional gospel catchphrases.