The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #107323   Message #2224361
Posted By: Azizi
29-Dec-07 - 11:55 AM
Thread Name: Biblical Place Names Songs
Subject: RE: Biblical Place Names Songs
There are a number of YouTube videos of Walk In Jerusalem {Just Like John}. These videos categorize that song as a spiritual and not a gospel song. Here's the YouTube version of that song that I prefer though it has no visuals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMZJerlaD-w
Walk In Jerusalem [Minnesota] Men's All State 2006

-snip-

I like this version better than the other examples I found on YouTube because, in my opinion, the other versions available were too exact in their diction & phrasing, and therefore didn't have as much of the soulful spirit that I believe should be the way this African American song should be sung. Although I don't think that the Minnesota choir's version really reached that African American soulful spirit either, I think that they did much better than the other YouTube versions of that song that I found.

Having said this, I absolutely don't mean that I think that African American spirituals should be sung in 19th century fake African American slave dialect. There's a huge difference between singing songs with soul and singing songs in fake, exaggerated Black dialect.