I remember the first time I ever heard Black Gospel music live as if it were yesterday. It was a bright Sunday morning on the Toronto Islands, just offshore of downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, but as far removed from the city as being 100 miles up country. It was 1978 and the Mariposa Folk Festival still made its home in this picturesque setting. The early morning show this Sunday featured a group from New Orleans.
The Zion Harmonisers were five black men of varying ages dressed impeccably in identical suits. They stood on the lawn with the late morning sun shining down upon them, singing about their love of Jesus and telling the stories of the Bible in song. I'd never experienced anything quite like it in the world. It was as if the passion that went into the best religious paintings of the Renaissance had been brought to life in front of my eyes.
The word Harmonisers in their name wasn't just idle talk. It was probably the day I first understood what was meant by vocal harmonies. Listening to those five voices singing the same song, each one was slightly different from the other, but all parts made up the whole. I'm sure the soundman won't ever forget the bass singer. He hit a note so deep and resonant that, even through the speakers you felt your sternum vibrate, and I saw the technician whipping headphones off his ears. It was a note too big too be held in by anything electronic.
That's the thing about great gospel music -- it's such a big feeling inside of the singers that they can't hold it in. The emotion behind the belief has to be released somehow and song is the only force strong enough, with a pure enough expression of the raw human spirit, to carry it up and away to the heavens. As the Jewish people would say, from your lips to God's ear and if their God can't hear the voices of these singers then he needs to get himself a hearing aid.
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