Monday Music: If It Had Not Been for the Lord on My Side

I heard this sung at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama yesterday. I was so moved by it, especially in that context and in celebration of Martin Luther King Day that I had to come find a recording of it. Here is the song as recorded live in Philadelphia at the Gospel Music Workshop Mass Choir of America.

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Monday Music: Unclouded Day

[Today's post is simultaneously featured at The Music of the Spheres]

Bob Dylan in the AARP interview recently talked about listening to the radio at night when he was a teenager in Hibbing, Minnesota:

One night, I remember listening to the Staple Singers,“Uncloudy Day.” And it was the most mysterious thing I’d ever heard. It was like the fog rolling in. What was that? How do you make that? It just went through me. I managed to get an LP, and I’m like, “Man!” I looked at the cover, and I knew who Mavis was without having to be told. She looked to be about the same age as me. Her singing just knocked me out.  This was before folk music had ever entered my life. I was still an aspiring rock ’n’ roller.

Monday Music: Andraé Crouch (I'll Still Love You)

[This post also appeared on The Music of the Spheres]

Last week we lost a pioneer in Contemporary Christian Music and a legendary Gospel artist when Andraé Crouch died at the age of 72. I'll never forget the morning at breakfast in my college cafeteria when one of my classmates mentioned a new album by Andraé Crouch and the Disciples, Take Me Back. "Finally!" he said, "Christian music is as good as anything you can hear on the radio!"

Andraé Crouch was a crossover artist in many ways. Virtually the only African American on the "Jesus Music" scene in the 1970s, he was recognized as one of the best in the field of what became known as Contemporary Christian music. He was schooled in "Black Gospel" growing up in The Church of God in Christ (which has produced many talented black musicians). Crouch became a Grammy award winner and a mainstay in the music industry, doing music for television and movies, and working with many of the luminaries in the business.

Here is the opening track from Take Me Back, released in 1975, "I'll Still Love You."

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