Black gospel groups are expected to do Go Down Moses, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (maybe even Nobody knows de troubles Obscene.) I went to hear the Five Blind Boys a few years ago, and they were playing in an elegant recital hall with a 95% white audience, decked out to the nines. Just about every song they did, I'd heard eight million times before, but they were singing for their audience, and the audience loved it. I ended up leaving at intermission, bored out of my skull. It wasn't that the songs were bad, or that they did a bad job on them. I just was waiting to hear a song I hadn't heard to death already.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went to hear the Five Blind Boys, and I was very skeptical. But, the audience was at least 50% black, and they had "church" that night... many exclamations shouted out from the audience, and half the songs they did, I'd never heard. The ones I had heard weren't common, and they did an unusual version of the songs. It was one of the greatest concerts in any genre that I've ever heard. Same group, different environment..

By the way, Kendall, they do Amazing Grace with a blues arrangement to the tune of House Of The Rising Sun. I thought the combination of a song about a Whore house, blended with Amazing Grace was kinda interesting, and it worked fine... try it out in the safety of your own home, sometime..


Jerry