Category Archives: Black Gospel Music

Christ Mass

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

 

This is my favorite hymn of Christmas.

For hundreds of years – through the early part of the 20th century – Northern Europe endured what would later be called a “mini-Ice Age.”  Heavy snows at Christmas were common. That far north, the wan sun rose late and set early. And in the hamlets and hovels, common folk shivered, praying for spring.

In those times, the Winter Solstice had special meaning. Just when it seemed that the night would win, relentlessly slicing off moments of precious daylight until only a few remained, on this day, the bleeding stopping. And, moment by moment, day by day, the sun returned.

Sol invictus!

Alone of the popular songs of Christmas, “In the Bleak Midnight” captures the desperation of nations crying for salvation, praying for the end of the darkness, the yearning for the light.

Our faith-ancestors wisely coupled the pagan Solstice celebration with the Christ mass. Beyond the obvious linguistic connection between “sun” and “Son,” they also captured a deeper understanding, a deeper magic – the Return of the Sun/Son King to save a darkened land.

The birth of Jesus, as Jeff Johnson notes, is the “centerpoint” of history, when – like a spearpoint – the divine explodes into the profane. The darkness that had prevailed so long could not withstand this moment, brighter than a billion billion supernovas.

Jesu Christo invictus!

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Advent is the waiting, the yearning. The dark night.

But on Christmas morning, our long wait is over.

Come, o come, Emmanuel …

One Starry Night in San Antonio

 

 

OK, this is why it works. Perfect night. About 70 degrees. Stars out. Mary had an invitation to the Witte Museum, where the traveling exhibition, The World of Mummies http://mow2.studiobanks.us/ is currently in full swing. Just as importantly, the evening was sponsored by The San Antonio Express News http://www.mysanantonio.com/. Among those speaking at the short 15-minute program was Managing Editor Mike Leary, the Pulitzer Prize-winner, most recently at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

We arrived a few minutes early and walked the beautiful grounds of the Witte, situated on the banks of the San Antonio River. You can now walk (or ride your bike) from the museum, past the Pearl Brewery complex, through downtown, past the Riverwalk, through the King William District, past the Blue Star complex, all of the way to the other missions, several miles south of town. The “back” of the Witte, which features several (re-located) historic buildings from San Antonio’s past, faces Brackenridge Park, itself full of WPA and CCC buildings and playgrounds. The grounds were lit with fairy lights for Christmas and worth an hour or two on their own.

The Express-News provided a nice buffet and we heard from the publisher and advertising director how the newspaper was committed to the community, how it was adding sections, and – more importantly – more writers. The response was warmly enthusiastic from the couple of hundred people in attendance.

After their talk, I hobbled over to speak to Mike Leary. I introduced myself as a professor from Baylor and he immediately complimented me on the long list of awards The Lariat, Round Up and Focus magazine have all received in recent years, including those where we beat the student newspaper at the land grant school in Austin. I asked him about my friends Mike Blackman (who taught at Baylor until this semester) and Henry Holcomb (a former Lariat editor), both of whom worked at the Inquirer. Leary regaled us with stories of the two, implying – quite maliciously, I’m sure – that both of those stellar gentlemen may have imbibed hard liquor at some point in their youth. Henry’s adventures as head of the union shop while Leary was editor prompted another affectionate story or two. We parted and he reminded me that the Express-News was “beating the bushes” for interns from Baylor.

In the museum, we were much impressed by The World of Mummies. Mary and I had seen the extraordinary mummies on regular display in the British Museum, but this traveling exhibit included mummies from South America, the peat bogs of Northern Europe, and an entire family interred and forgotten for centuries in a hidden vault in an ancient German castle. Nearly every mummy had a digital display as well, showing the results of MRI and and X-ray scans. Informative and beautifully done.

The night was still young, so we drove a few minutes west towards North St. Mary’s Street where Tycoon Flats http://www.flatsisback.com/ features a biergarten, various brews on tap, good pub grub and best of all on this fine December evening – live music. San Antonio is a town full of live music, but the first Friday evening of each month belongs to the MFS Band (Music Fa Ya Soul) http://www.myspace.com/mfs4lifeband, an uncommonly talented R&B and funk band that specializes in both familiar and unfamiliar tunes by Prince, Cameo, Earth, Wind & Fire, the Gap Band, Zapp, the Stylistics and all of the great dance bands that were in business between the fall of soul music and the rise of disco. Oh, we love those guys. They were in rare form Friday night, too. Mary was compelled to dance on numerous occasions under the stars, joined by grandmothers, ankle-biters and everybody in between. Van even stopped by, en route to a special evening of his own at Floores Country Store in Helotes. I even managed to dance a slow song … but only because Mary danced very, very slowly.

When the last set ended, we hugged new friends, and were home in 15-20 minutes in light traffic.

One starry night in San Antonio, y’all…

 

A Day on the Police Beat

             A Day on the Police Beat

 

In a perfect world, just about everybody would have to serve on the police beat for at least a year. And not just journalists, either. Everybody. Much of what I learned about writing, I learned on the police beat. There are a number of classes where you can learn how to accurately gather information and write in clear declarative sentences on a deadline.

But on the police beat, you learn a lot more. You learn how to discern among several conflicting viewpoints. You learn about agendas. You learn how to nurture contacts. You learn who isn’t trustworthy. You learn how to tell when someone is trying to use you for their own gain. You learn how to weave varying opinions into a story. You learn, ultimately, what is and what isn’t newsworthy. All of those still-evolving skills have served me in (mostly) good stead as I’ve written ever-larger magazine articles and books.

So, just like the obituaries, no matter what city I am in, I read the short police reports in the daily newspaper. And, like obituaries, I’m sure some folks would think this is a bit morbid of me. It’s true that the bulk of the reports are about murders and robberies, car crashes and fires. (But not everywhere. When I lived in the U.K., there was a single murder in Bristol in the year I was there. It was front page news for nearly two months.)

Like most police reporters, I have a story or two from my time interacting with the police. Perhaps I’ll blog about them some day. A couple of them involve Brad Bailey. By and large, I’ve liked the beat policemen and inspectors I’ve encountered. (Traffic cops, not so much.) The guys and gals on the street – the “Thin Blue Line” – are generally honest, hard-working, fascinating people. Like the men and women who work in fire departments. Like the men and women who teach science and math to junior high school boys. They’re all interesting. And we don’t pay any of them enough.

And so it comes to pass that I was reading the police reports in the Sunday Oct. 28, 2012 San Antonio Express-News: a fatal car crash, a fire, a police homicide detective facing an assault charge … and this little item from the city’s East Side. Police reporters are trained to relay the information they’ve obtained from the police blotter (or interviews with the police) in a dispassionate, matter-of-fact style, just as the reports in the police blotters are written.

This particular story (on page B2, should you think I am making this up), is titled “Aggressive dog killed by officer.” To recap:

According to Sgt. Gary Pelfrey from SAPD, a woman’s dog got loose from her front yard about 2 p.m. on that Saturday. The woman pursued the animal. “According to her,” Pelfrey stated, “in a playful manner, the dog started ripping her clothes off.”

OK, full stop. I’m having trouble picturing this. But Pelfrey continues:

“An innocent bystander who was walking down the street didn’t know they were being playful, and he tried to help.”

The pit bull-like dog bit the man on the leg, then ran further down J Street. Paramedics and the police were called.

When the officer arrived, the woman was “walking down the street in a thong,” still trying to regain control of the dog.

The dog lunged at the officer in “an aggressive manner” and the officer was forced to shoot the animal.

You’re wondering if the innocent bystander was all right.

No you’re not, you’re wondering about the woman, now reduced to wearing nothing but a thong after her dog “playfully” tore the rest of her clothes off, trying to regain control of her pit bull-like dog. Admit it.

What’s next?

But that’s all there is. The account ends with the cop killing the dog.

Intriguing, yes. Infuriating, yes. Weird, yes. But that’s the deal with police reports. They’re just reports, they’re not complete little short stories. They’re a snapshot of a moment in time.

An innocent bystander, an alternately playful and aggressive dog, a woman wearing only a thong, a cop.

Four characters in search of a third act.

Just another day in the police reports. What will it be tomorrow?

14 Greatest Apocalyptic Songs of All Time

14 Greatest Apocalyptic Songs of All Time

This is a list I’ve been assembling for quite some time, with input from a number of people, most often our other resident musicologist, my son Van. These are not songs about the Apocalypse or Armageddon (or even Ragnarok, for my Odinist friends). Instead, I’ve always been fascinated with songs with an almost manic, barely controlled intensity, in the lyric or the music or the vocals – or, in a perfect world – all three. I’m looking for songs where the performer is either losing control or has just lost control. I’m drawn to songs where there is a hint of hysteria and … sometimes … a hint of insanity.

In short, I’m not looking for anything by Chicago or Celine Dion or Taylor Swift or anybody who has ever appeared on American Idol.

Not surprisingly, this manic, dangerous intensity often occurs in gospel music. Getting lost in the Holy Spirit in a divine madness is one of the hallmarks of the genre, so I’m saving all religious songs for a second list.

This list of what I’m calling “Apocalyptic Songs” is purely arbitrary. On a few occasions, I’m doubtless reading a lot more into the song than what the writer and/or performer intended … or what other listeners may hear. I’m OK with that.

If you have time and are interested, I’ve included YouTube links to most of the songs. I think you will be surprised by some of these. And yes, they were meant to be played LOUD.

I’m sure there is more such music out there. I welcome your suggestions.

Honorable Mention:

“Joe Hill” by Billy Bragg (written by Phil Ochs); “Rock and Roll” by Lou Reed; “Something in the Air” by Thunderclap Newman; “This is the Sea” and “Whole of the Moon” by the Waterboys; “A Sea Epic” by Crack the Sky; and “Summertime Blues” (from Live at Leeds) by the Who (with a nod to Blue Cheer’s version as well).

Greatest Apocalyptic Songs of All Time

In reverse order:

14. In assembling Apocalyptic Songs, I turned to Van for help in the metal field. He came up with a couple of suggestions. One, the original song “Black Sabbath” by Black Sabbath, was already on my list. But the other artist was someone I had never heard of, Blut aus Nord, the name chosen by a French musician who creates all of this in his studio. I spent a good portion of the morning listening to various songs by Blut aus Nord and I was overwhelmed by the sheer melodic menace and sturm und drang of this stuff. Van recommends you start with anything from the 777 trilogy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKsYnHPX6Ns

13. “Maggie’s Farm” by Bob Dylan

Originally thought to be Dylan’s kiss-off on the folk music, “Maggie’s Farm” has become to be regarded as one of the great anti-war songs of all time. It would be higher on this list, except no one version (and there are many out there, including some excellent, raging live renditions) captures the fury I was looking for. Nearly as good, incidentally, is Rage Against the Machine’s interpretation.

12. “Love Rain O’er Me” by the Who

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygOaNo3M_Hw

The Who’s rock opera Quadrophenia never got the attention of Tommy, much less the attention it deserved. The closing “Love Rain O’er Me” is the equal to anything Pete Townshend ever wrote or the band ever recorded. And the final, towering chords are among the “biggest” ever recorded in rock ‘n’ roll.

11. “Hurt” by Johnny Cash

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o22eIJDtKho

One of the great artists of our generation singing as if he knows – and he does – that there are just a few minutes left until midnight. A great producer (Rick Rubin) wisely pairs Johnny with a great song (by Trent Reznor) and  the Man in Black delivers a haunting four-minute sermon on heart-wrenching regret. A truly memorable, elegiac video, too.

10. “Ballad of Tom Joad” by Tom Morello and Bruce Springsteen, from Springsteen’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-mq0uJ7rlM

Depending on the version, “This Land is My Land” could very easily been on this list. Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello (along with Billy Bragg) are our best living protest singers. Morello’s incredibly inventive, passionate solo here echoes the righteous anger (mixed with not a little angst) of the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

9. “Barton Hollow” by The Civil Wars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrOUwbsy12E

This is the most recent Apocalyptic Song on my list. I wanted to include at least one of those spooky, pinched-voice, high lonesome Appalachian ballads about betrayal and murder and things that wander between the worlds. Chilling.

8. “Black Sabbath” on Black Sabbath http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akt3awj_Ah8

Doom-laden, hag-haunted, and impossibly talented, the original Sabs created a genre with this dark and frightening slab of thundering noise. It never gets old. Often imitated …

7. “Fight the Power” Public Enemy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-4AtiOjBmg

Likewise, if you had to pick only one rap song, this would be a strong contender. The barely controlled anger of the words is matched by the furious, ferocious performance.

6. “The Walls Came Down” by the Call

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kX8lqXAONg

Remember them? The late Michael Been was a tortured genius with a singular vision of faith and nihilism. This song was said to be crazily powerful live, especially when fueled by Garth Hudson’s booming organ chords. This is music to accompany live readings of the Book of Revelation.

5. “Down by the River” – both the Neil Young and Buddy Miles versions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5_5ik5ZM6M

There is a palpable sense of foreboding and dread about this song. It doesn’t make much sense, but madmen are always the most dangerous foes. It builds and subsides, builds and subsides – like a fever. In a similar vein when performed live: Young’s titanic “Like a Hurricane” and (sometimes) “Cortez the Killer.”

4. “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_L4RtU1iRg

The greatest cover ever of a Bob Dylan song (it is allegedly Dylan’s favorite as well) and a once-in-a-generation combination of music and lyric. Hendrix’s guitar mimics the howling winds of change blowing outside the “watchtower,” snarling and cajoling, pleading with the unseen mob below.

3. River Deep, Mountain High by Ike and Tina Turner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0wPrN_Y_4

Phil Spector’s justly acclaimed wall-of-sound masterpiece is elevated to the supernatural with Tina’s vocals – where she somehow channels years of abuse into a desperate plea … as if she’s trying to sing Ike into loving her. Terrifying. If Spector wasn’t crazy before, the commercial failure of this song alone would have been enough to tip him over the edge.

2. “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJDnJ0vXUgw

Arguably the Stones’ greatest song. “Gimme Shelter’s” legendary status in the annals of rock was cemented when it was played at the infamous Altamont Free Concert. But it is included on my list because of gospel artist Merry Clayton’s superhuman performance on the third verse. Her vocals are cataclysmic, a sonic assault that energizes the band and caused me to jump in my chair the first time I heard it. All kinds of stories have popped up about this performance, that Clayton sang so hard that she miscarried that night, that she actually sang 10 feet away from the mic to keep from blowing the speakers, that she was touched by an angel while she sang. I only believe that last one.

That said, the Ashley Cleveland version is a close second:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74qWOdNYjLc&playnext=1&list=PL6722E5AD26645BD3&feature=results_main

Finally, what I consider the greatest Apocalyptic Song of all time:

1.    Stay with Me – Lorraine Ellison

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrYwtAz-LZQ&feature=related

Not by accident, also my favorite rock/R&B/soul song/performance of all time. In my mind, no one has ever poured this much of her soul into a lyric. It’s as if Ellison (another former gospel singer) is projecting the pain and heartbreak and desperation of all women in her performance. “Stay With Me” is too overwhelming for me to listen to very often. The sense of urgency and despair is too great. But if you’re feeling reasonably confident at the moment, and you can play the song on decent speakers at a serious sound volume, do yourself a favor. Listen to this song. God bless you, Lorraine Ellison, wherever you are.

On Grief

As I’ve mention, I have had a number of significant milestones in the past year and a half. I’ve moved twice (including the most recent one where I left what had been my home since 1979). I’ve finished the largest book of my career. But few milestones compare to the passing of your parents.

My father suffered mightily from Parkinson’s Disease and seemed to lose interest in life following of my mother’s death 18 months ago. I was in San Antonio when the call came from my sister Danni to come to Waco. Now. Mary and I rushed back and I arrived in time to share his last few minutes. The days/weeks that followed saw a different kind of grief than that which accompanied my mom’s passing. I handle loss differently at different times, it seems. Perhaps you do, too.

One recent Sunday in Waco I saw examples of how people cope with the death of a loved one. There is a strip mall on Valley Mills Drive, just past Franklin Avenue but before West Waco Drive. At the entrance is a grouping of crosses, marking the tragic death of a carload of young people some years before. At the crosses, several people stood, apparently sharing a private service of some kind. Oblivious to the noise of the busy street, they huddled by the small white crosses. Perhaps they sang, perhaps they prayed. I couldn’t see as I drove past.

Later that same day, as I drove up 25th Street, I saw a single cross. It was across the street from Reicher High School and it is often adorned with flowers. What I hadn’t noticed before was the small bench beside it. A man sat on the bench, elbows on his knees, hands on his head, staring at the cross. I finished my business (it was at my parent’s house, near Lake Shore Drive) and I returned the same way. The man was still there, this time with his right hand on his chin, still staring at the solitary white cross.

In both cases, people chose a specific way to remember … and grieve … that worked for them.

In the August 24, 2012 edition of the Waco Tribune-Herald, I turned – as readers of previous blogs know I often do – to the obituary page. Three of the obituary photographs featured the deceased with their pets. Rick Quaintance posed with his little dog, which looked like Toto from the Wizard of Oz. Sandra K. Smith was pictured hugging her little dog, some kind of spaniel.

But the most intriguing photo was placed by the family of Johnny L. Chapple.  Chapple was, judging by the picture, a formidable-looking man – broad-shouldered, bald, and with a long, sandy-colored beard. He is shown with a stern look, almost a glare. He’s also tenderly holding a Boston Terrier, though the Terrier is actually in the foreground. Among Chapple’s accomplishment was listed his work with Boston Terrier Rescue of Houston. In fact, in lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be made to Boston Terrier Rescue of Greater Houston.

I suspect that it gives Chapple’s family and friends a real sense of peace making those donations. Doing so also, I suspect, helps them deal with their grief.

What we do when someone we love is taken from us is an intensely personal experience. I really haven’t found any one-size-fits-all approach on how people handle, internalize, express and/or cope with that kind of loss. I’ve discovered that my grief for the passing of my parents (and for the passing of many – too many – good friends) in the past few years is much different than what I would have anticipated. Perhaps it is the “reporter” in me. I was trained to observe first, analyze later. But then, my friends and family’s memories of me indicate I was that always that way as a kid. I’ve found that I keep most of it inside.

I also believe grief will express itself … eventually. Somehow and someway – and usually in an unexpected moment. I wasn’t able to attend the funeral of my beloved grandmother Allie Owens (I was in the hospital with a bad back at the time). But I don’t think I actually really grieved her death until a few weeks later when I was at the funeral Jim Hudson’s wonderful mother. This delayed reaction has happened to me before and it will no doubt happen again.

Mary has helped me see that when we get blue, we’re sometimes reacting to the anniversary of some kind of loss, perhaps an anniversary that we may not even be consciously aware of at the time. It’s only in retrospect that we see that our bodies are/were reacting to a memory.

How long it takes someone to “get past” the death of a loved one (or even a favorite pet) is strictly up to them. It’s not my place to judge. In fact, I think maturity (and hard knocks – which may be the same thing) have taught me that it’s not my place to judge someone else on MOST occasions. Besides, it’s just not my job. There’s Somebody far better equipped for that particular chore.

They say funerals are for the living … the dead are long past caring. Mom and dad are together. Johnny L. Chapple is playing with a pack of bounding Boston Terriers. Grandmother Allie is young and pain-free and funny and feisty and beautiful, surrounded by her family and friends.

Milestones and anniversaries mount as I get older, whether I am always aware of them or not. I want to tell the people I love that I love them NOW so that when the time comes and I’m the one standing  by a roadside cross or sitting by a tombstone or an even holding an urn of ashes, it is with a sense of … peace. They knew I loved them on earth because I repeatedly showed them and told them so while they were here.

Then when I’m standing or sitting there, I’m just reaffirming that love… not regretting opportunities lost.

I grieve, for you
You leave, me
So hard to move on
Still loving what’s gone
They say life carries on
Carries on and on and on and on

– “I Grieve” by Peter Gabriel

The Melancholia of Completion. Maybe.

“Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” — Gene Fowler (credited, but I think the quote is older still)

I have (virtually) finished my book. Six-seven years in the making, I’m (virtually) finished with Nothing But Love in God’s Water: The Influence of Black Sacred Music on the Civil Rights Movement, Volume 1. Oh, there is still the odd nit to pick. And, once I send it to the publisher (Penn State University Press), there will likely be lots of email flurries between my computer and their editors. It ended up at 83,000 words, for those of you who are interested in such things. More than a thousand footnotes. And only one or two snarky comments.

That means I am free to resume blogging, which I’ve missed. Once I started the actual writing, I put almost all of my other writing aside. Thanks to Gardner Campbell, I’d found blogging to be a helpful tool, emotionally and creatively.

As those of you who have written books, dissertations, theses, screenplays, songs, symphonies, and very, very long letters home may know, it is a curious feeling to complete something this large, something that has been a this big of a part of your life for such a long time. I’ve moved (twice!), kids have gotten married, dictatorships have (hopefully) fallen, Baylor’s athletic programs have flourished, my knees have failed me. The feeling of finishing is not really sadness, it’s not really relief. It’s just … curious. As Robert Haas once said: “It’s hell writing and it’s hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.”

I’m not so sure about that. The research (for the most part) was exciting. The writing (for the most part) was exhilarating. The rewriting (for the most part) was rewarding. The finishing? Slightly melancholy.

It’s not so much that Volume 2 is left to do, either. I haven’t discussed a deadline with Penn State. (For you blessed few who have NOT heard me rattle on about the book, Volume 1 covers the use of black sacred music as a form of protest from the American Civil War through the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Volume 2 will cover from the earliest Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides through Albany, Birmingham, Selma, Chicago and Memphis through the Poor People’s March and Resurrection City. At least it will if I live that long.) For me, the act of completion the last couple of days has been something akin to … melancholy. It is bittersweet. I’m not sad or blue, just … reflective.

Part of that may be due to devoting so much of my life to a single topic, even something as far-reaching and complex as this one. You wonder, at least I do, did I miss something along the way? What did I give up over the many weeknights, weekends, and supposed vacations I worked? Yesterday, I heard Harry Chapin’s “Cats in the Cradle” on the radio and all but broke into tears. How many times did I tell the kids “No, I’ve got to work. You go on and play.”? Once is probably too much. Sorry guys.

But what has kept me from completely wallowing in morose introspection has been my unshakeable belief that this topic matters. The longer I got involved in the interviews and research, the more convinced I became that this vast, far-reaching subject is worthy of continued study. I suppose every writer, fiction or non-fiction, thinks the same way, ultimately.

But here’s why I believe that a better understanding of the Civil Rights Movement is important today: It’s an on-going process. WAY too many people in this country of all races and creeds, of all genders and ages, still do not enjoy the full fruits of democracy. Too many poor people, too many people with differing ideas about sexuality, too many people with various physical, mental and emotional challenges do not share equally in the guarantees built into our Constitution. And when one person is denied their civil rights, we all suffer…

Is the study of the power and influence of African-American sacred music of the past 150 years still relevant? I really, really think so.

Perhaps you saw this little story, tucked away in the margins of most news sources. An African-American couple – male and female, for those of you who care about such things – sought to get married in a Baptist church in Mississippi. The congregation denied them that privilege. Even the Tea Party Republican governor was appalled: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/03/mississippi-governor-wedding-ban-unfortunate

Alas, this just as easily could have happened (and probably has, we just don’t know about it) in Texas or Alabama or Illinois. This topic will never go away. In a nation that was founded with a significant portion of the population considered to be inferior, this problem is likely to always be with us, in one form or another. It’s like racism (and the other –isms) are in our national DNA somehow.

So, I’ll take a little break. I’ll wait for the edits from the Penn State University Press editor. I’ll begin to leisurely organize yet again the mountains of research I’ve accumulated for Volume 2. I’ll vow to spend more time with Mary and the kids and grandkids and friends and family. I’ll read more. I’ll email you.

And I’ll out-wait this odd little feeling of … (virtual) completion.

High John de Conquer and Holy Laughter

From Zora Neale Hurston’s The Sanctified Church:

High John de Conquer came to be a man, and a mighty man at that. But he was not a natural man in the beginning. First off, he was a whisper, a will to hope, a wish to find something worthy of laughter and song. Then the whisper put on flesh. His footsteps sounded across the world in a low but musical rhythm as if the world he walked on was a singing-drum. Black people had an irresistible impulse to laugh. High John the Conquer was a man in full, and had come to live and work on the plantations, and all of the slave folks knew him in the flesh.

The sign of his man was a laugh, and his singing-symbol was a drum. No parading drum-shout like soldiers out for show. It did not call to the feet of those who were fixed to hear it. It was an inside thing to live by. It was sure to be heard when and where the work was hardest, and the lot the most cruel. It helped the slaves endure. They knew that something better was coming. So they laughed in the face of things and sang, “I’m so glad! Trouble don’t last always.” And the white people who heard them were struck dumb that they could laugh. In an outside way, this was Old Massa’s fun, so what was Old Cuffy laughing for?

Old Massa couldn’t know, of course, but High John de Conquer was there walking his plantation like a natural man.

You never know how or when the threads of your lives intertwine. I have written three books in recent years and, upon reflection, I see that they are inter-related: People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music, Reluctant Prophets and Clueless Disciples: Understanding the Bible by Telling Its Stories, and Jesus Laughed: The Redemptive Power of Humor. And now that I’ve begun work on Nothing But Love in God’s Water: The Influence of Black Sacred Music on the Civil Rights Movement, I see where they all connect. They’ve all helped prepare me for this moment.

I wrote Jesus Laughed in part because of the visits Mary and I had made to black churches in the course of writing People Get Ready. Black churches resound with laughter before, during, and after the services in a way that the white churches I’ve attended do not. Where did we lose that capacity to laugh?

I’m writing Nothing But Love in God’s Water in part because of the ways black sacred song — from the spirituals through the union movements through the Civil Rights movement — has continued to irrepressibly bubble up and envelope black people at their times of greatest need … as if this music is always there, always available, always waiting for a moment like this.

And now I stumble across Zora Neale Hurston’s essay on High John de Conquer, a mythic black figure who pre-dates John Henry and Stagger (or Stack-o) Lee. High John’s weapons are laughter and song. And speed. High John is fast, as Hurston writes:

Maybe he was in Texas when the lash fell on a slave in Alabama, but before the blood was dry on the back, he was there. A faint pulsing of a drum like a goat-skin stretched over a heart, that came nearer and closer, then sombody in the saddened quarters would feel like laughing and say, “Now High John de Conquer, Old Mass couldn’t get the best of him. That old John was a case!”  Then everybody began to smile.

It’s about story — a story that came from Africa that sustained the slaves and their descendents for generations. It’s about song — songs that came from Africa and enveloped the best of the Christian faith and withstood the dogs and water cannons in Birmingham. It’s about laughter — laughter that came from Africa and enabled blacks in the Jim Crow south to laugh secretly at those who spent most of their waking moments trying to figure out ways to crush High John and the millions like him.

It is no accident, Hurston writes, that High John de Conquer has evaded the ears of white people. They were not supposed to know. You can’t know what folks won’t tell you.

And so it is with Nothing But Love in God’s Water. I’m teasing out from the songs and singers HOW this music helped them get over. WHAT this music provided that enabled them to challenge the most powerful nation on the planet armed only with love and justice. It’s all there in those on spirituals and those unstoppable gospel songs — the stories, the laughter, the music. The trouble is, of course, is that I’m seeing (and hearing) through a glass darkly. 

And armed this knowledge, once again, I pray for strength every day to do that song, that laughter, that story justice.

The Soundtrack of Your Life

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”
— Rob (John Cusack), High Fidelity

There are times — even during good times — when you just need a little melancholy in your music. Not sentimentality, but just a touch of blue. When those times come, here are some of the songs (or, more precisely, the lyrics to those songs) that I turn to:

“Banks Are Made of Marble”

I’ve traveled ’round this country
from shore to shining shore
It really made me wonder
the things I heard and saw

I saw the weary farmer
plowing sod and loam
l heard the auction hammer
just a-knocking down his home

But the banks are made of marble
with a guard at every door
and the vaults are stuffed with silver
that the farmer sweated for

I’ve seen the weary miner
scrubbing coal dust from his back
I heard his children cryin’
“Got no coal to heat the shack”

But the banks are made of marble
with a guard at every door
and the vaults are stuffed with silver
that the miner sweated for

I’ve seen my brothers working
throughout this mighty land
l prayed we’d get together
and together make a stand

Then we might own those banks of marble
with a guard at every door
and we might share those vaults of silver
that we have sweated for

Originally by Les Rice. The most famous versions are by Pete Seeger and the Weavers, but Iris Dement does a lovely take on it.

“No Expectations”

Take me to the station
And put me on a train
I’ve got no expectations
To pass through here again

Once I was a rich man and
Now I am so poor
But never in my sweet short life
Have I felt like this before

You heart is like a diamond
You throw your pearls at swine
And as I watch you leaving me
You pack my peace of mind

Our love was like the water
That splashes on a stone
Our love is like our music
Its here, and then its gone

So take me to the airport
And put me on a plane
I got no expectations
To pass through here again

Jagger/Richards, The Rolling Stones. While I could pick nearly anything from Beggar’s Banquet, after I heard this played behind the harrowing footage of Katrina refugees turned away on the bridges out of New Orleans five years ago, it has come to have a special meaning for me.

“O Worship the King”

O tell of his might, O sing of his grace,         
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space;  
His chariots of wrath the deep thunder-clouds form,  
And dark is his path on the wings of the storm. Yes, the old hymn. There is something about that last couplet …

“Broken Bicycles”

Broken Bicycles, old busted chains/With busted handlebars out in the rain/Somebody must have an orphanage for/These things that nobody wants anymore/September’s reminding July/It’s time to be saying goodbye/Summer is gone, but our love will remain/Like old broken bicycles out in the rain.

The things that you’ve given me will always stay/They’re broken, but I’ll never throw them away.

Tom Waits, “Broken Bicycles” (I must admit I like Maura O’Connell’s version from A Real Life Story better).

Melancholy, but lovely.

See? I feel better already.

Connections …

… researching Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s connection to the Civil Rights Movement (she played a number of benefits for the NAACP) leads me to “What Do They Want? A Jazz Autobiography” by Sammy Price. Price was a legendary pianist/arranger/song-writer during the ’40s and ’50s — sometimes known as “The King of Boogie Woogie.” He also produced some of Sister Rosetta’s biggest hits.

Turns out, Price lived in Waco until about age 18. He has vivid memories of the Cotton Palace, the fair, listening to blues on Bridge Street at the Gaiety Club, fighting with Baylor University students on the street cars, hearing Blind Lemon Jefferson on the downtown Waco square, and learning piano on an aunt’s 10-foot grand.

He also hears a chilling blues song about a horrific lynching in Robinson (then called Robinsonville):

I never have, and I never will/pick no more cotton in Robinsonville

At 18, he takes the Interurban to Dallas and makes a name for himself on Deep Ellum. But it begins in Waco …

Connections …

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

I’ve been asked to write a couple of entries for a new encyclopedia … and one of the entries is on Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Like all scholars, I am much indebted to Gayle F. Wald’s recent ground-breaking research on Sister Rosetta, particularly Tharpe’s influence on the bands of the British Invasion. Sister Rosetta toured with the early R&B shows in England and the Continent and everybody from Cream’s Ginger Baker to the Moody Blues cite her as a significant influence.

Back in the U.S., Johnny Cash, Elvis, and Carl Perkins were all fans. And when Jerry Lee Lewis auditioned for Sam Phillips at Sun Records, he chose Tharpe’s “Strange Things Happen Every Day”!

Shout, Sister Rosetta!