I'm excerpting a bit of an article below. You can find the whole article at this address:

http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2000-03-01/ae.html

Glenn Hinson's book delves deeply into this subject. I haven't yet read it, but had read this article, and just heard an interview with him, and suspect that many of us who love gospel and spirituals, and have and interest in the roots of African-American music will find treasure. The people he worked with tried very hard to share insight with those of us who did not grow up in this tradition. I think a lot of this conversation overlaps. And I think, for me, anyway, the thing hinges on the degree of respect and dignity that is brought to the pursuit of something that you are called to, whether you would name that caller the Holy Spirit, or some other name. And whether you are born into it, or grow into it.

bbc - I, too, am glad you brought it up. Let's set some time aside at the Getaway for some discussion!

Dani

"You got to be in it to feel it. And if you're not in it, you just sit there and you look." The words of Primitive Baptist Elder W. Lawrence Richardson, a former member of the gospel group The Fairfield Four, sum up the essence of Fire in My Bones: Transcendence and the Holy Spirit in African-American Gospel (University of Pennsylvania Press, 424 pp., $24.95), authored by UNC-Chapel Hill anthropologist and folklorist Glenn Hinson. They also reflect the career of The Branchettes, the gospel duo celebrating nearly three decades in song and praise later this month.