Kirkepiscatoid: The Kirkepiscatoid Holiday Black Gospel Junkie Fix--Glory to the Newborn King

The Kirkepiscatoid Holiday Black Gospel Junkie Fix--Glory to the Newborn King

Ok, true confessions time. It all started when I was a little kid, and lived in the pre-A/C era. All the churches used to have their windows open on Sundays. Zion Lutheran Church was just a small piece down the road from the Bethel AME Church. While we were droning on one Sunday, I could hear the folks at the Bethel AME Church singing the same song we had just sung...what a moment of serendipity. I suddenly realized, "I'd rather sing it like THAT."

On long, hot summer Wednesday nights, I used to ride my bike over to the Bethel AME Church and listen to them singing on Wed. night services. I would sit outside and imitate them, despite the fact I was rather melanocyte-challenged for that style of music. It was either that, or peek in the windows of the Pentecostals on Wed. night and watch them speak in tongues and roll around. The AME Church usually won.

As a result, I have always been a junkie for traditional black gospel music. I can even do it a little, and it's kind of fun when you take stuff in our hymnal and um...African-Americanize it a little. (I got some of my church friends really chuckling when I sang "This is the Feast" in black gospel style once.)

But anyway, I found this version of "Glory to the Newborn King" to be worth posting to get my fix. Enjoy!

P.S. I'm especially fond of the purple choir robes...

2 comments:

susan s. said... December 22, 2008 at 11:40:00 AM CST: This is real good! I like the purple robes too, but we are relegated to the black cassock/white surplice at my church. I wonder if their robes are as hot(and I do mean temperature wise) as ours were last evening when the church was full of people, and enough candles to light the place(ha) even with the lights off, and the heat going full blast!

I am also enjoying your antiphons! You are a clever mule(or is that a donkey?).
DeanB said... December 22, 2008 at 2:19:00 PM CST: For the past dozen years the choir of Temple Emanuel (conservative Jewish) of Newton MA has had a joint concert with the Massachusetts Avenue Baptist Church (mostly African-American) of Cambridge as a fundraiser for the Mass Ave church's soup kitchen. We do a couple of numbers together at the end. It's far and away the best reason to join the T.E. choir! We even got to go over to Cambridge one year for the dedication of the renovated soup kitchen and sing in the church.