There's more to my "Hem of His Garment" story - might as well add it here and now.

I hadn't posted this epic tale last year, when I first wrote it as part of a couple of PMs, because I had some intention of expanding what I had into an essay on the nature of memory. I half-assedly planned to sit on what I had written until I got around to expanding it, adding another incident and figuring out how to tie the whole thing together around the theme of how I experienced an ebb and flow of memory over the years. My recurring awareness of this one particularly spine-tingling musical moment has been a mysterious and fairly important experience for me, and finding a way to write about it coherently seemed like an interesting challenge.

As described above (16 Dec 04 - 04:59 PM), I heard an incredibly impressive Gospel performance at an early age, sometime in the mid-to-late 1950s. I had no idea at the time who the performer might have been, and it happened during a period of several years when I heard *a lot* of incredible gospel singing, at least twice a week, most of which has blended into one general overall memory in my current consciousness. The one thing I definitely remember is becoming obsessed with the search for information on the hem-of-His-garment Bible story, somehow prompted by a particularly transcendant musical experience.

A year or two later, when I first heard Sam Cooke as a "new artist" on the radio, I knew his voice was very familiar -- one of my very favorite singers, someone *not* "new" to me -- but I don't believe I was able to make the explicit connection to "Hem of His Garment" at that time.

Finally, many years later in the 1990s, I heard the Soul Stirrers' recording and everything fell into place. Memories from the distant past actually came back with great clarity as I could see the connections among certain peak experiences.

What I had *not* included in my writings so far was an related incident in about 1962-64. I went to a Peter Paul & Mary concert in Newark NJ with one of my buddies (one of my *few* fellow folk-music enthusiasts) when we were high-school sophomores or juniors. We were serious PP&M fans, and PP&M were still a very new phenomenon. At one point in the show, the performers began a lengthy introduction of their next number, discussing the wonderful rich tradition of Negro Spirituals, etc., etc., and now they were going to sing us a great classic song about Jesus meeting a woman, it's the retelling of a Bible story, etc., etc.

I'm going nuts, elbowing my friend in the ribs: "Oooh, I know what they're going to sing! This is gonna be great! Wait'll you hear this!" -- Of course, my deep-seated memory of "Hem" had been reawakened, and I was primed and ready to listen and get goosebumps.

Of course, PP&M did not do the Sam Cooke number, they sang "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well" -- nice song, sure, but NOT what I was anticipating, not even close. I was *so* let down; I was suddenly disilllusioned about PPM and about "commercial folk" in general, and became a fairly hard-core blues/traditional enthusiast pretty much on the spot. Yeah, I eventually got over it to an extent, and would again be able to enjoy and admire Peter Paul & Mary for their great harmony singing and their inspiring social/political commitment, but I no longer expected them to show me that magical musical Holy Grail -- I knew I had to look elsewhere.

(What I eventually found, upon following my nose to New Orleans, was Professor Longhair, creator of the MOST sublime music I've ever experienced. But that's another story for another time.)