From ages 4-10 I lived next door to a "colored" church (Christian Methodist Episcopal, or CME) and thus spent several formative years listening close-up to some of the world's most incredible vocal music. This was in a working-class neighborhood in Plainfield, New Jersey, where most of the other white immigrant families (Irish, Italian and Polish) were leaving and black folks from the south were moving in. The neighboring congregation, as I understand it, was mostly from rural south Alabama, and the sound they produced was unlike anytrhing I've heard before or since.

You could easily pick out the voices of some of the older folks chiming in, demonstrating a very free, very "primitive" or tribal and kinda dissonant approach. The only music I've ever heard that is at all similar is the Georgia Sea Island Singers. An important difference: my neighbors included plenty of younger and more citified members, so the overall effect was a mixture of styles whereas in the field recordings from the Georgia islands, everyone in the ensemble employed the same ancient style.

Also, the pastor booked plenty of the top touring Gospel acts of the day, generally on weeknights, probably in-between gigs in New York and Philly. I remember the huge tour busses parked right outside my 2d-floor bedroom window, while I lay in bed pretending to sleep while listening to the church members singing along with professional artists, quartets, etc. Wow!

One late weekday evening, probably within the last year or two that we lived next to that church (making me about 9-10 years old, in '56 or '57), I lay in my top bunk listening to the most electrifying, most ecstatic, most totally abandoned music I had ever experienced. There was a big old tour bus parked in the reverend's driveway; one of the many great professional gospel acts was up in front of the crowd singing their hearts out, and the crowd's participation was as awesome and goosebump-inducing as anything that was coming out of the altar/stage area, as they sang along, in multi-part harmony and polyrhythm, with the wordless chorus ("wo-o-o wo/wo wo wo . . .).

This time, I *could* understand all the words of the verses being delivered by the lead singer, and the next day I was paging through the Bible trying to find the story of a woman who chased after Jesus, wanting only to touch the hem of his garment. I didn't find much -- I think it's just a few lines in just one of the Gospels. The song had really provided much more of a story, and certainly much more impact, that the brief little passage of Scripture.

Flash forward another year or so. A new popular (i.e., secular) tune is coming out over the radio, sung by a very familar voice, a favorite of mine. Then the announcer comes on and tells us that we've just heard a brand new artist with his very first record. I'm thinking, no way, I'd know that voice anywhere, he's been one of my favorite singers for . . . well, I don't know since when, or just exactly who he was or where I heard him, but he's sure not brand-new to me!

The record was, if you haven't guessed, "You Send Me," by Sam Cooke.

Another 30 years or so went by before I got a "Best of Sam Cooke" cassette that included two of his old recordings with the Soul Stirrers, dating back from before he quit the gospel world to go "pop" (commercial). Cut #2 was something already long-familiar; I'd heard it from Aaron Neville and probably several others as well, "[My Lord Is] Wonderful," which Sam had later recorded with secularized lyrics ("My Love is Wonderful, Wonderful," etc.) to the exact same tune.

But it was Cut #1 that really blew me away. For the first time since my childhood, I got to hear "The Hem of His Garment." Tears came to my eyes, every hair on my body stood straight up. It's a good recording of a great composition, with one of the all-time best harmony-singing groups backing up their talented young lead singer, but in *my* ears, I also heard the elusive memory of a whole churchful of additional voices joining in, adding so much emotion and spirit:

There was a woman, back in the Bible days,
She had been sick for so, so very long.
Then she heard my Jesus was passing though
So she joi-oined
the gathering throng.
And as she was pushing her way through
The people asked her, "What are you trying to do?"
She said if I
could but touch the hem of his garment
I know I...... would be made whole.

And she cried, Whoa-oh [etc. There's no point in trying to transcribe a whole 16 bars of scat. If you know Sam Cooke, you have some idea of the approach and the sound. I can tell you that the membership of the First Christian Methodist Episcopal Church had NO trouble immediately learning how to sing along with *this* part!]

She spent her money / here and there
Until she had / no more to spare
And the doctors / they did what they could
But their medicines / could do no-o good.
And when she touched Him, the Savior didn't see
So he turned around and cried, "Somebody touched me."
She said it is was I who wanted to touch the hem of Your garment
So I / could be made whole / right now.

And she cried ... (you'll have to imagine the rest.........)

That's the music that blew me away, once and for all, and I ain't been the same since.