Tag: gospel

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Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

The Cinch Review

Swing Low Sweet Chariot

In many Christian churches this morning, the first reading would have been from Second Kings, chapter two, where the prophet Elijah is taken by God while his assistant and successor Elisha (who had repeatedly refused to leave him) looks on. They are walking by the river Jordan when it happens.

And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.

That image of chariots of fire coming for Elijah inspired the widely-beloved spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which is credited to Wallis Willis, a Choctaw freedman who is believed to have composed it sometime circa 1860. Continue reading “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”

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80-voice choir to perform Bob Dylan’s gospel songs in Australia

The Cinch Review

The 80-voice Melbourne Mass Gospel Choir will perform many of the gospel-era songs of Bob Dylan in concerts scheduled for this weekend, in Carlton (a suburb of Melbourne), Australia. Full story in the Melbourne Leader.

The leader of the choir is quoted as saying, among other things, that “They are powerful social critiques and the lyrics are now 30 years old but are as contemporary as anything you could imagine.” I usually cringe when hearing people talk about Dylan as a writer of “social critiques” and such-like, but when applied to his gospel-era songs, it strangely makes more a lot more sense than usual. I think it could definitely be argued that they are his protestiest songs ever.

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Jerry Lee Lewis: Last Man Flying

From a performance in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1981, the YouTube clip below features Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins performing “I’ll Fly Away.”

Carl Perkins died in 1998. Johnny Cash in 2003. Elvis Presley, the fourth member of the famed “million dollar quartet,” passed away back in 1977. That’s the genesis of the title of a recent Jerry Lee Lewis album, namely Last Man Standing. As one of those latter-day albums of aging-stars-singing-duets-with-younger-stars goes, it’s not so bad at all. Continue reading “Jerry Lee Lewis: Last Man Flying”

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The Parable of the Bad-Ass Good Samaritans

The Cinch Review

parable of the bad-ass good SamaritansOh, Jesus: if only You could sue. From the Associated Press: NYC cabbie mistakenly beaten by good Samaritans.

Police said a cab driver who tried to take a purse from a woman fare beater was beaten by a group of good Samaritans who thought they were seeing a robbery. Police said it happened Saturday morning near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal when four woman[sic], who had been club-going, got into a fight with the cab driver over the fare. Continue reading “The Parable of the Bad-Ass Good Samaritans”