Customer Reviews

Wade In The Water, Vol. 2: African American Congregational Singing

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This disc perfectly captures the feeling of being in an old time church and listening to the senior choir give praise.Kudos to Smithsonian Folkways for capturing this for future generations.Truly a remarkable work of art.

This compilation is an incredibly moving collection of traditional African American congregational songs. Part of the "Wade in the Water" series, every volume is worth listening to again and again.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," "Soul Physicians," "Spiritual Friends," and the forthcoming "Sacred Friendships: Listening to the Voices of Women Soul Care-Givers and Spiritual Directors."

Stop at this place for genuine roots that produced excellent and exceedingly abundant fruit.

A lot of mystification exists about Black religious music. Several traditions and practices that are of 20th Century vintage such as Gospel of both the quarter and the gospel ensemble type are projected as original Black religious music. The recordings on this CD are as close as we are going to get of what Black worship was like in churches that hewed to African traditions of worship before Europeanizing practices of music and worship steam rolled over Black religion.

Singing and even testimony was not restricted to a designated choir, gospel group, and not necessarily dominated by the preacher, but were a product of the entire congregations attempts to feel the spirit and feel the direct effects of the spirit. This is what Black religion was about, following African precepts. A preacher was not so much an individual who decided to receive special training, but a person who felt the spirit strong and felt he could lead his sisters and brothers in faith to the spirit.

Black congregational singing, shouting, and other forms of worship were the target of European-religion oriented preachers who dominated the Baptist, Methodist, and AME denominations that sprung up after the Civil War. Ultimately, they sought to end congregational singing and the congregational worship interchange we see on this CD. Some went all the way to fully European worship with classical music and singing only by a designated choir or soloists, all often presided over by a college trained (European trained in the biggest churches in cities like Chicago and New York) music director.

The evolution of gospel singing which centers on songs devised by 20th Century song writers who got rich on the selling of their songs like Tindsley and the immortal Thomas Dorsey (AKA sexual double entendre Blues singer Georgia Tom!) aimed at providing some kind of compromise. More African-oriented singing was allowed by a restricted group, the church gospel choir, quartet, or soloists, during whose performance Southern AFrican forms of "getting happy" were tolerated. Dorsey found his special niche adding in patterns of arrangement and performance taken from the Blues and light jazz he had played himself and arranged for performers like Ma Rainey. This created modern gospel, a performer oriented, written song oriented product revolving around stars and star groups more in the tradition of the Blues business, than the early Black church.

These Church Rocks as the folks used to call them are where Black religious music really comes from. The songs that European-oriented choir directors and composers culled the Spirituals out of sounded like this, not like Marian Anderson or the Fisk Singers.

These recordings reacgh back to the ring shouts and other AFrican worship,