Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) is pleased to announce the processing and finding aid publication of the following collections of the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz:

Golden Voices Choir of St. Francis de Sales Church collection (HJA-104)

This collection contains programs, member lists, flyers, ephemera, and a research manuscript related to the Golden Voices Gospel Choir of St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church of New Orleans and created between 1982 and 1985.

Founded in 1867, St. Francis de Sales Parish was located in New Orleans’ Central City neighborhood and originated as an outgrowth of St. John the Baptist Parish. Following Hurricane Katrina, St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church closed and, in 2008, merged with Holy Ghost Church to form St. Katharine Drexel Parish.

During the late 1960s Black Catholic Movement, St. Francis de Sales became one of the first Catholic parishes in New Orleans to incorporate Black liturgy and culture into its worship.

The parish’s Golden Voices Choir, founded in 1969, released several recordings and, in 1974, became the first Catholic choir to perform in the Gospel Tent at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

New Orleans Church of God in Christ oral histories and ephemera (HJA-112)

This collection contains recordings and transcripts of oral history interviews related to various Church of God in Christ (COGIC) locations in New Orleans, including the St. Philip Church of God in Christ. Interviews were conducted with local COGIC leaders and members between 1997 and 2005. Also included are correspondence, meeting and event programs, a COGIC manual, a COGIC hymnal, photographs, and other materials and ephemera related to COGIC history.

The oral history project emerged from research by music writer and scholar Lynn Abbott on Elder Utah Smith, a COGIC-affiliated guitarist whose musical style influenced many blues guitarists. The Church of God in Christ is a historically significant and influential denomination within African American Pentecostalism and is the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States.