The Chi-Lites, Teena Marie & George Benson

Recorded live over 25 years ago

Mamma's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Pastors!

What is the life of the pastor like?  Here's one music video take!

Some Teena Marie Favs

Put your headphones on :)

TEENA MARIE RICK JAMES LONG BEACH
Uploaded by oublierleracismeskyblog. - Explore more music videos.







Déjà Vu Live


Another Soul Train performance

On American Band Stand

Remembrance







Happy


I'm Just a Sucker For Your Love (instrumental)


Sunny Skies


Now That I Have You


Black Reign


My Dear Mr. Gaye


Out on a Limb


Casanova Brown


Pretty Man


Dear lover


It Must Be Magic


Square Biz


How Can You Resist It


Can’t Love Anymore


365


Miracles Need Wings To Fly


Interview

Merry Christmas -- Carol of the Bells (Celtic Women)

For the penultimate day before Christmas Eve, I share with you a beautiful carol for the day, but the Celtic Women!

Enjoy! Merry Christmas

Three Kings of Blues

The Three Kings of Blues (Blues guitar more specifically): Freddie King, B.B. King, and Albert King. There's only one left. Blues more generally is a dying art. Another American original art that's disappearing. There aren't many great musicians around playing raw blues anymore. Taj Mahal and a handful of others are still going, but there isn't much of a next generation after that. The same seems to be happening with Jazz, although there are a number of programs (not enough) that still teach this art. America seems to be losing its culture. The problem is made worse by the fact that school systems are cutting back on programs for the arts.



Ain’t No Sunshine

Have you Ever Loved a Woman



I like to Live the Love

I Believe to My Soul



I Got The Blues

Blues Power

Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald

Thirty-five years ago a very large ship went down in a storm on Lake Superior, taking with it the lives of twenty-nine men.  It is a wreck that was made famous by a Gordon Lightfoot song -- The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.   It is a song from my own youth, that has hit home more since moving to the Great Lakes region (even if I've not been as far north as Lake Superior.  In the memory of the day and the crew, here is a version of that song that includes footage from both before and after the fateful day.

Atheist Song - First hymnal for Atheists

This was sent to me -- a Steve Martin rendition of the First Atheist hymnal. Should be enjoyable to watch! Whatever your religious persuasion!

Solomon Burke Passes On at Age 70

Solomon Burke
(1940-2010)  
I Have A Dream (Now Is The Time)

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Page

Reports & Remembrances

Rolling Stone

The Guardian

NPR Report

Funky 16 Corners

Three for One: Quincy Jones and Crusaders

Joe Sample/Crusaders - Covert Action

Esther Williams, Dave Grusin, Laura Nyro, & Gene Harris

God, Beauty, and Music

This morning we dedicated our organ for the service of God's praise and for the creation of beauty in the world.  This afternoon, we will share in the dedicatory concert of this same organ.  It is the opinion of many that the organ is an instrument whose time has come and gone, much like the lute and the lyre (though guitars are their successors). 

This new organ, about which I've opined before, is an instrument that is able to support every musical form from Bach to Gospel.  It has the sound of a German Bach organ and it can also make available the sound of the Hammond B3, which is so prominent in gospel and rock music.  But that's not the point I'd like to make -- that's the technical side.  What I want to lift up is the gift of music to the healing of the world.  Beauty is something that the church has to offer the world, and music and the arts both contribute to this beauty.

The questions then are -- What is beauty?  What role does beauty have in the mission of God and the mission of the church?  What role does beauty play in the kingdom of God?  These are not easy questions to answer.  Some will raise the question of how resources are used.  This is a proper question.  What kind of good could have been accomplished with the money spent for the organ -- or for that matter the sound system or video system in other churches.  What about buildings themselves?  And yet . . .

So, as you ponder the question of beauty and music as a gift of God, let me share a litany written by Sharlande Sledge, a Baptist Pastor and writer.  It is entitled:  "Music"

Hymngiver God,

A psalm of praise we write for you,
O God of New Life,
who creates music in us we cannot contain.

A psalm of delight we write for you,
O God of Welcoming Presence,
whose hospitality invites us to linger at the table.

A psalm of gratitude we write for you,
O God of Transforming Promise,
who shapes miracles from words of hope.

A psalm of rejoicing we write for you,
O God of Eternal Love,
who embraces us in the circle
of creation, redemption, and resurrection.

Composer of Wonder,
make us living psalms of praise.*

*Sharlande Sledge, Prayers and Litanies for the Christian Seasons, (Macon, GA:  Smyth & Helwys, 1999), p. 78.

Mavis Staples, The Voices of East Harlem, & The Pockets

Mavis Staples - Eyes On The Prize


Voices of East Harlem (C. Mayfield production) - Take a Stand


The Pockets- Come Go With Me

The Western Tradition . . . Continued?

Heather Cox Richardson

When I teach the American West, I always

start the weeks on the American West as entertainment with “When the Work’s All Done This Fall,” the first cowboy song recorded by Carl T. Sprague. Appearing in 1925, it sold close to a million copies and remains a favorite old time western song.

I had always thought the poem on which the song was based reflected late nineteenth-century America, with its quick deaths, poverty, and sentimentality.

So imagine my surprise this summer, when I heard modern western songwriter Slaid Cleaves doing “Horses Quick as Dreams.” This seems almost to be an updated version of the classic song:

Is the song simply part of a musical tradition? Or is it a reflection of modern American culture?

Shuggie Otis and Love Unlimited

Shuggie Otis - Oxford Gray


Love Unlimited w/ Love Unlimited Orchestra (Barry White & Co.) - I Belong To You


Barry White/ Love Unlimited - I Found Someone/ Live in London 1975

Good, Bad, and the Ugly -- Ukele Orchestra of Great Britain

This was sent to me by a friend -- too good not to pass on.  One of the great movie themes of all times.

2 for 1: Boz Scaggs and Joe Sample & the Crusaders

 Boz Scaggs - Here to Stay & Flames of Love


Joe Sample/Crusaders - Lilies of the Nile

Gil-Scott Heron - Ain't No Such Thing As Superman

Ain't No Such Thing As Superman
Gil-Scott Heron & Brian Jackson

Lyrics:

You have understood
The riddles of the ages

Yes and you have understood
The universal mind

You have placed your footprints on
The everlasting sands of time

Yes so tell me why
Can't you understand that there ain't no such thing as a superman?
There ain't no such thing as a superman

You was on the Nile
You went to see great Egypt fall
It fell down to the ground

Yes, and you was out there on the corner
When being cool went blind
Oh, you alone understand that if we gonna win
We've got to get together, stay together, be together, stick together

So tell me why, can't you understand
That there ain't no such thing as a superman
There ain't no such thing as a superman

You alone consider mercy after it seems like all you get is pain
It seems to me that you have found the courage that others could not find
You alone have the wisdom to take this world and make it what it needs to be, wants to be, will be, someday you'll see

The day, the day you understand
That there ain't no such thing as a superman
There ain't no such thing as a superman

3 for 1 - Bettye LaVette, Bill Withers, and Sharon Jones

Bettye LaVette- Salt of the Earth (as good as the original? I think so).


Bettye LaVette - Salt Of The Earth found on R&B




Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - I Learned The Hard Way

Singing in Church

Today, my last day of vacation, we decided to attend a larger, well-heeled Episcopal Church.  It is a beautiful Gothic cathedral in a nearby affluent community.  We went with high expectations and came away greatly disappointed.  I won't go into the details, but our experience today reminded me of the importance of congregational singing, which I believe may be a dying "art." 

My experience this Sunday stands in great contrast to what we experienced last Sunday up in Omena.  Now, I have to note that my music minister is the summer organist up north, and he provides wonderful support to congregational singing.  I need to also say that the people who attend this church love to sing.  So, the service we planned last week featured a lot of singing -- I did a sermon that is rather unique in that each movement of the sermon included hymns.

So, back to the issue of singing, and my observations about its place in worship.

One of the keys to congregational singing is "singability."  I think one of the reasons why people like to sing gospel songs is that they are melodic and easy to sing.   Many of the early praise songs -- from the 1970s -- were also very singable.  But there is a lot of church music, especially more recent material, that is very performance oriented and difficult to sing.  Obviously that was true of the hymns that we sang this morning.  It is also true of much of the recent "contemporary praise music."   

A friend who has a Ph.D. in worship and the arts has been studying worship in these large churches which feature praise bands, and what he noticed is that no one was singing.  There was a praise band with professional-level singers, and the folks in the "audience" might hum along, like you might at a concert, but there was very little fully engaged singing.  This is very different from what I experienced years ago (back in the 1970s)

Now, I love to sing and I sing out -- as my congregants will tell you -- so I like to choose music that is singable. Now, I don't always succeed.  Sometimes I'll choose a piece that doesn't work, and so we either move on or work on it some more.  And when introducing new songs and hymns, I try to balance them with songs we know (again, there are times that I fail in this, but that is why I keep track of the songs we sing, so I know how often and when last we had sung a piece). 

So, here are my questions: 

1. How important is congregational singing to worship? 

    2.   What have your experiences been regarding congregational singing in your settings?

Bill Withers - World Keeps Going Around

Awesome live performance - from the live @ Carnegie Hall album