The term "Southern Gospel" conjures up thoughts of small ensembles singing songs about heaven in Baptist churches. In the case of South Carolina's Needtobreathe, the term could be used to describe the band's sound... though it might be better described as "Southern Rock + Gospel."
On their latest album, The Outsiders, Needtobreathe has truly come into their own, seamlessly blending ambient, arena-ready soundscapes with a decidedly Southern sensibility. "The 'Southern thing' is very scary to some people," [vocalist/guitarist] Bear Rinehart laughs. "But for us, it's not so much a sound than a feeling. It's just about having some soul in the words you write, the music that you play. And it's something that just comes naturally to us."
Featured Track: "Lay 'Em Down"
Lyric Excerpt: "Come down to the river / Come and let yourself in / Make good on a promise / To never hurt again / If you're lost and lonely / You're broken down / Bring all of your troubles come lay 'em down"
Bear Rinehart: "['Lay 'Em Down'] is really about [how] everybody has to leave their past behind and what makes them them. At some point they need to say, 'Ok, I don't care if I'm right or that other person is right.' Everybody has to come to God with that kind of spirit." (Source)
Being who you are won’t always please your parents. The American film classic St. Louis Blues depicts musician W.C. Handy (1873-1958, pictured) as a pioneer, betraying his minister father who believed “there are only two kinds of music, the Devil’s and the Lord’s.” In marrying hymns and gospel music to blues and jazz, Handy became a legend known as The Father of the Blues. His memory has been honored annually for the past 28 years at the WC Handy Music Festival in his northwest Alabama birthplace.
Many musicians who have played for years at the festival describe themselves as feeling like they rejoin their family each summer. Indeed, their exquisite improvisations sound like they never cease practicing together, yet in the community of this spirited festival each shines forth their special talent as an individual artist. Like Handy, many had an overriding desire to make music as if there really was no choice, no matter how much their fathers discouraged their career decision.
“What part does your spirit play in your music and how does your music play on your spirit?” I asked seven male musicians who agreed to talk with me in a roundtable discussion for an hour between gigs. Their responses debunked the myth that “men are out of touch with their emotions,” added a new dimension to my week, and gave me some life lessons to share.
Drums: “Music is a musician’s whole life. It’s what you are rather than what you do. Spirit is everything. When I play, I open up my whole self to let it out. Communication is so important; you can’t do the music without relating to other musicians like an unspoken promise where you want to express yourself but encourage others to do the same – opening to possibilities of sharing everything we are. I’m hesitant to say that I’m channeling the music, but I think that selflessness happens to all of us at points during improvisation. We compose, the music is out there, and then the moment is gone which makes it all the more precious. Music is like life.”
Keyboard 1: “Yes, and being perfect ruins it. You have to take risks or the music wouldn’t be real. I think of it as the “Zen style” of playing which can get me into the zone – that’s the spiritual part of it. The worst thing I can do is to think too much about it.”
Vibes: “Swing is spirit and swing is everything. It gives back, lifts me up and always is there when I need it. There is mystery in the improvisation. It’s not about the instrument you play but about the humanity in the person.”
Trumpet: “My wife is an artist; we are speaking the same language in different mediums which is spiritual for me. It doesn’t really matter what your instrument is although trumpet – a wind instrument – gives me a chance to have a true voice, which started in 6th grade. Paradoxically, I’m not a trumpet soloist; I must trust and be with others to see where they’re going in community.”
Sax: “I’m a creative writer and the principles are the same as in art and music – contrast, design, color in the broader sense, and organization. To stay the course in a different professional way of life requires faith and tapping into the creative spirit every day. Music is a religion with a different language. Music is spirit and must be followed; spirit follows spirit.”
Trombone: “The spirituality of music is like group therapy for me. I couldn’t play when I had cancer, and I thought I would go crazy. Music keeps me on course.”
Bass: “I’ve played music as long as I can remember, and it gives me a direction even though I don’t think of myself as a man with goals. I’m spontaneously composing when soloing; when the others join me there’s a certain vocabulary we all use with phrases we know but never said before in the same way.”
Later I spoke with two other keyboardists. One said, “My music has started to flow through me from a secret place only God knows. It feels like I have come “home” to a place all of us look for. I do much of my work in prisons, churches and other places I can talk/sing about spiritual concerns. It’s dangerous if God is only in our heads; He starts to sound an awful lot like us.”
The second reflected, “Music will exalt anything to which it is attached – God, family, sex, hamburgers. It is a spiritual force second only to love. King David made it a requirement that the 4,000 Pharisees he dispatched to spread the word of God’s kingdom had to be musicians largely because music transcends language and speaks directly to the spirit.” As St. Augustine is credited with saying: ‘He who sings prays twice.’”
Margaret M. (“Peggy”) Treadwell, LCSW -C is a family, individual and couples therapist in private practice. She has been active in the fields of education and counseling for thirty-five years. Following a long association with Rabbi Edwin H. Friedman, during which she served on his faculty, she co-edited and helped posthumously publish his book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. She may be contacted at PeggyMcDT@gmail.com.
"The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues, on one hand - running away; gospel, the Mighty Clouds of Joy - running towards."
Road To My Love is the sixth, and most soulful release to date, from the critically acclaimed folk-rock songwriter, vocalist and accomplished guitarist, Ana Egge. Once called "a folk Nina Simone" by Lucinda Williams, Ana brings an honest, deep and beautiful offering to the rootsy folk genre. In addition, Road To My Love is also the fifth release for Parkinsong Records, an independent non-profit label founded by the children of a Parkinson's disease sufferer and is dedicated to raising awareness for Parkinson's disease research.
"Bully of New York"
Ana: "I wrote Bully Of New York after a chance encounter in New York City. I was leaving the MET Museum and entering Central Park, when a park ranger was about to pass me in his truck. So, I put out my thumb and he stopped for me. I asked the man about his life, his job, his family. Everyone suffers, everyone has a story. But not everyone has someone to listen to their troubles. His open-hearted replies resonated with me and the song was born."
Click to play
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
Ana: "I love the thought of being helped to the other side when it comes my turn. And the line that I get swept up in is 'If I get there, before you do, coming for to carry me home, I'll dig a hole, and I'll pull you through, coming for to carry me home.' As if I can be a part of that helping hand."
Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash on 'Sun Gospel' CD - "It has long been assumed that Sun Records founder Sam Phillips didn't like gospel music because he discouraged his greatest discoveries, including Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, from recording spiritual music for his Memphis label in the 1950s. But it turns out Phillips loved gospel music -- he just didn't think he could successfully market it in the mid-1950s when his rock and country records were exploding onto the charts." (latimesblog.com)
The Sacred Elements of Kirtan (with Jai Uttal) - Yoga and chant singer Jai Uttal on "his experience as a kirtan musician and the sacred sounds he brings to the world." (visionmagazine.com)
Celebrity yogi Madonna shares spiritual awakening in Israeli paper - "Celebrity yogi Madonna is revered as a singer, a dancer and a music idol to some, but for today she will also be known Israeli newspaper correspondent, the below article from Contra Costa Times writes." (examiner.com)
Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits have been called by yoga chant veteran Jai Uttal, "simply the most wonderful kirtan band in the Western world." A traditional kirtan band at their roots, As Kindred Spirits pepper their music with new sounds, outside influences and interesting sonic combinations. Take for instance "Sleeping Soul (Jiv Jago)", which infuses Western Gospel music with Indian kirtan, or the powerful heart-call of the acoustic balled "Surrender," a type of song you don't normally hear on a kirtan album. (Both songs, which you can hear below, are from the album Ten Million Moons.)
"Sleeping Soul (Jiv Jago)"
"I think gospel, qawwali music, kirtan and other ecstatic music are all the same thing. Not the same in the sense that everyone's exactly the same. Everyone has their own unique differences and it's our differences that create that beautiful diversity. But in the sense that they're all being fed by the same divine source, that underground river... [and] I feel like gospel music is a sister tradition." (Gaura Vani)
Click to play
"Surrender"
"The saints and teachers of the kirtan tradition say that we should cry like a child for his mother. Rumi, the Sufi poet from a different tradition, says that we should be like the whining dogs calling for our master. This mood of a genuine heart cry is essential to the kirtan tradition. So the song "Surrender" was my attempt to write a song that does that in a language we're familiar with in English." (Gaura Vani)
“I was given the gift of devotional song from birth, raised with the music of the temple, taught to sing and play beautiful instruments and dance... for love and for God,” says Gaura Vani, the heralded musician and leader of what Jai Uttal calls, “Simply the most wonderful kirtan band in the Western world.” Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits has released their second CD entitled Ten Million Moons and are in the midst of a prolific year. Not only has the band been featured at the sold-out Obama Presidential Inaugural event Chant4Change, they have also recently been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered and seen in the CBS Television Special, Faith, Music and Culture.
At the age of six Gaura Vani left the US to study sacred music in a gurukula or temple school in the timeless town of Vrindavan, India. He learned ancient prayers in Sanskrit and Bengali and to sing and play ethnic instruments like the harmonium and mrdanga. Twenty-five years later he continues to share the magic he received and performs extensively with his kirtan ensemble, As Kindred Spirits, throughout the world from Europe and Asia, to the Americas.
The kirtan sub-culture is a lotus growing from the mud of materialism. Kirtan refers to the ancient practice of gathering for musical worship in the ancient traditions of India. It’s still very alive today. Empty rooms quickly transform into a churning mass of bodies, dancing feet, eyes flashing, hands striking two headed mrdanga drums. This is the epicenter of the kirtan subculture. Gathering together in yoga studios, temples, ashrams, homes (in the basement of your seemingly average neighbor) this vibrant spiritual and musical subculture thrives.
Gaura Vani founded As Kindred Spirits in 1998 with percussionist/multi-instrumentalist, Shyam Kishore, who studied classical Indian music directly from living masters like Zakhir Hussein. Together they have created a special style. Rooted in the Indian kirtan tradition, their diverse influences span the musical spectrum from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jai Uttal, Jagjit Singh, and Axiom of Choice to Beck, Bjork, Peter Gabriel and DJ Cheb I Sabbah. This group brings a fresh take to sacred world-music.
RockOm: What was the inspiration behind Ten Million Moons and how is it different than your past CD?
Gaura: Well my last CD was almost like it fell on my head. I've lived in Washington, DC for the past 10 years and a friend of mine called me up from California and said, "I got a hold of some recording equipment. What are the chances of you flying out to California so we can make an album together?" So we got together in a friend's bedroom in a house full of people and tried to record during the times when no one was making noise. We did basically the whole album, give or take a couple of tracks, in a week. We threw a couple more songs on, some live recordings, and that was the first album. It had a lot of raw energy and was really from the heart and was coming from the love we all share as musicians.
This album, although I tried my absolute best to maintain some of that love, energy and spirit, was from a very different place. It was a much deeper place and I was going through some very tough times in my life. I was working at a job as a filmmaker doing training films for the US government, the Department of Homeland Security. It's a very politically-charged environment, very difficult for someone who's more artistic. It's very hard to function sometimes. I put everything I had into my music whenever I could. I would come home from working a 10, 12, or 14-hour day and put in one or two hours in the studio before falling asleep at the soundboard. Myself, along with my business partner Rasa Acharya, just put everything we could into this album after hours. It was such a personal creation, an exploration, and I honestly didn't know if anyone was going to like it. First of all, I didn't even know if the musicians on the album were going to like it because they come from such a wide array of influences - everything from very classical Indian to very modern and funky Western. I just was trying to use my sensibilities to honor their contributions while at the same time trying to create something brand new. Little by little I started showing it to some of the musicians who were on it and started to get a good response from them. Then I started to show it to other friends and record labels, and people liked it. I'm just so grateful and thankful.
The two albums come from such different places - the first was just a pure joy of creation with friends and the second one was more of a yearning, a longing for a more free and innocent time to be able to create like that, which didn't exist for me during the creation of this album.
RockOm: You founded As Kindred Spirits in 1998 with your percussionist and associate Shyam Kishore, who had studied under [RockOm alum] Zakir Hussain at the Ali Akbar Khan School of Music. What was the intention of starting As Kindred Spirits?
Gaura: Shyam comes from an Indian family. I come from an American family who converted to Hinduism and Krishna worship in the 1960s. So we came from two very different places and at the same time we were meeting in the middle, trying to find a way to take an ancient tradition and live it in a real, honest modern world. I think the reason we chose an English name as opposed to a Sanskrit name or a Hindi name is that spiritual life - whatever denomination, if you're a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist - we feel like it should be a living piece of your life, something that you don't only do on Sundays, something you can do 24-hours a day. You can live it at work, you can live it at private times and it shouldn't be something you're divided about. The idea of creating As Kindred Spirits was to take some of our influences - especially spiritual influences - and mold them and push them in a way that challenged us and that we could live by, and that our friends could live by, that could actually be the soundtrack of our lives. I feel that it is an important thing for our generation to say, "You know what? My religion is not something I'm doing for someone else. My spirituality is not something I'm doing as a social pressure. I'm doing it because this is my expression of my soul calling to the divine. And this is what I do, whether I do it at church or do it at home. It's a real expression of my heart."
RockOm: At the age of 6 you left the states to study sacred music at a temple in India. What was the catalyst for your move?
Gaura: During the tumultuous 1960s, there were people from all over the world who were away from where they had been raised, looking for something that made sense to them on their own terms spiritually. My mother and father were some of those people. I grew up in ashrams, which are like yoga schools, and temples throughout the world. There's a very traditional school in a small temple town called Vrindavan, which is where Krishna was born. It was like a boarding school that was connected to a beautiful, marble temple. Myself and a bunch of other kids from all over the world grew up there including the study of sacred music and sacred ritual. That was really an important time for me in my life. I was only there for a year or so, but that kind of experience is very formative. It changes your perspective on the world. I continued to study at ashrams until I was 10, then went to standard American schools. So those two worlds - having the ancient Indian spiritual education along with a regular old American upbringing - created a very interesting synergy in the mind and in the heart.
RockOm: Speaking of young people and changing the world, tell us about your experience and involvement in Chant4Change.
Gaura: Everyone was starting to feel enlivened by Obama's campaign. Even if you didn't feel Obama was the candidate, the idea that something like this was in the air was inspiring and exciting to everybody; that the old systems, the old boundaries, and the old ways of doing things were not necessarily how they were always going to be. And then for myself and a lot of my friends, when Obama won, it was really a sense of - wow, what will the future be? What is possible? What are we going to manifest through this opportunity?
We were in New York shortly after Obama won and after the initial fever died down, one of my friends said, "What are you going to be doing during the Inauguration, because I'm going to be in Washington?" I swear to you, it felt like a ton of bricks fell on my head and shoulders. I thought, "Oh, my Lord. There's no big chant event, no big kirtan event going on during that time. Conscious people from all over the world are either going to be in Washington or going to be focused on Washington. I just knew at that moment, standing on that street in New York City that we have to do something. So for that evening's concert and other concerts we were doing in the city, I started telling people that we are organizing an amazing event in Washington, DC that's going to be held on the Inauguration. Everyone around me just looked at me and said, "Are you sure you know what you're doing" But I just felt it, I knew it had to be done. I felt like it was an opportunity I couldn't pass.
That next week when we came back to Washington we had two months to organize this event, all the locations in Washington were sold out. There were rumors that even Oprah Winfrey and MTV couldn't find a location. We just did a lot of praying, did a lot of phone calling and seeing what was possible and we started to pull together like a coalition of friends: yoga teachers, conscious people, artists - everyone who was into it that found it realistic, possible and exciting. Chant4Change ending up being a totally sold out, star-studded event: Jai Uttal and Shiva Rea were there, very influential yoga and kirtan people, other yoga teachers and activitists, Grammy-award winner Toni Childs was there. It just became an event unto itself. We had a small church within sight of the White House on 16th street, so we were within sight of the focus of that evening's attention. [We were there] to chant, to empower and uplift the new administration, to bless ourselves and the city and the country and bless the outgoing administration. Somehow sending out blessings, we could take this energy and transform it for an even greater purpose. It was a real unification of body, mind and soul beyond the boundaries of country or race and was very, very successful. One of the Yoga Journal bloggers called it a prayer meeting meets a dance club in a church or something like that. People were singing at the top of their voices and dancing in the aisles. The video is online as well as photographs. It was truly amazing to all of us.
RockOm: Perhaps it should be an annual event now.
Gaura: We're working on a Chant4Change on the West Coast, in Los Angeles or San Francisco before the holidays. This event is going to be focused on the other ecstatic traditions, other than kirtan. So we're going to take kirtan, which is India's ecstasy chant and devotion tradition, and we're going to have it meet Sufi music, the Islamic ecstatic chant tradition, and gospel, which is the Christian ecstatic chant tradition. So at least those three traditions are going to come together for an evening of both traditional music from those faiths, as well as joining together to create a totally new unique sound. So that's very exciting.
RockOm: What are the similarities and differences as you lead kirtan in different parts of the world?
Gaura: Each place has its own flavor. Kirtan ultimately is described as like a scrubbing, a cleaning of a heart. Sri Chaitanya [Mahaprabhu] - who is the founder of kirtan as we know it and who brought kirtan to the streets 500 years ago during the first documented non-violent social reform movement in India - brought the chanting out into the streets to erase some of those boundaries like castes and creed and class. He says that the holy names of God, of the divine, have the power to clean the heart. And when the heart becomes clean, we can see. He's comparing it to a mirror, that we can see who we are in relationship to the Divine. A dirty mirror doesn't allow you to see clearly but as you clean it you can see clearly, "Who am I, who is the Lord and what is our relationship?" So the kirtan experience is unique to the individuals and it's unique to their own experience.
In some places our kirtans are very meditative. When we were touring in South Africa, we performed at the Ghandi Hall in Lenasia, near Johannesburg, and it was mostly an older Indian audience. There was not a lot of clapping, not a lot of singing, and we were sweating bullets there on stage. We thought, they don't like it; they hate it. And then afterwards, everyone came up to us and said, "It was so beautiful... you did a fantastic job... we were so touched." It was their way of appreciating, just meditating. Other places, like when we perform in New York City, people will go wild and start dancing like whirling dervishes and it's just intense with people yelling, chanting and laughing. We did a kirtan in South Carolina and I didn't have a drummer, it was just me on the harmonium. It was very, very quiet. People were just singing along very peacefully and, little by little, people started crying just from the depth of their own prayer as we chanted. It's a totally unique experience depending on the mood of our heart or the way we approach chanting.
These names have all the power that the divine Lord and divine world invested in them. Whatever tradition - if you look at the Bible, David says in the Psalms to "make a joyful noise unto the Lord." The chant tradition runs so deep. This Chant4Change that we're tyring to do around the holidays this year is based on the idea that there is one underground river that all of the traditions of the world are drinking from. They're all being fed by this raging river underground which is God's love for us.
RockOm: Let's talk about some of the songs on Ten Million Moons. What prompted you to include the song "Surrender" on an otherwise straightforward kirtan CD?
Gaura: [laughs] Well, that is a question I asked! Kirtan is an expression of the soul calling. The saints and teachers of the kirtan tradition say that we should cry like a child for his mother. Rumi, the Sufi poet from a different tradition, says that we should be like the whining dogs calling for our master. This mood of a genuine heart cry is essential to the kirtan tradition. So the song "Surrender" was my attempt to write a song that does that in a language we're familiar with in English. I really put it out there in a way that people could understand the mood that I'm trying to cultivate in my heart, which is "Lord, make me an instrument." There are so many songs by great saints like the Prayer of Saint Francis, "O Divine Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love." It's a very beautiful prayer and it really embodies what they call a bhakta, someone who's trying to cultivate devotion. And that's what kirtan is all about, bhakti or devotion, and that mood that St. Francis embodies, that was what I was trying to bring to a song.
RockOm: Another great uplifting song is "Sleeping Soul (Jiv Jago)." How did gospel find it's way into kirtan?
Gaura: Like I said, I think gospel, qawwali music, kirtan and other ecstatic music are all the same thing. Not the same in the sense that everyone's exactly the same. Everyone has their own unique differences and it's our differences that create that beautiful diversity. But in the sense that they're all being fed by the same divine source, that underground river. I've grown up my whole life, since before I can remember, doing kirtan so kirtan is in my blood. I think and feel in kirtan. But when I go to a gospel concert, that same energy reverberates in my body and I want to get up and sing and dance and chant, just like I do when I'm in my own temple. They're the same call, that call from the heart to the Lord. "O Lord, make me an instrument. O Lord, bless me and know me. O Divine Lord, let me engage in service and devotion to you." I feel like gospel music is a sister tradition and there are some amazing gospel and Shaker songs that are undeniably personal.
There's this one gospel song that goes, "If you can use anything Lord, you can use me. And if you can use anything Lord, you can use me." And the verses talk about how God inspired David to pick up that little stone and that small stone took down the giant, Goliath. And if he can use that stone, then certainly the stone can use me. Then the chorus comes in again. "If you can use anything Lord, you can use me." So that tradition is really connected to kirtan. When I did "Jiv Jago", which is based on a 100 or 200-year old composition by Bhaktivinoda Thakura, I started hearing these overtones in the background. I would hum lines and then I started hearing this gospel choir. I sat in the studio late one night and found myself singing these gospel lines. I listened to them afterwards and thought, "This is ridiculous. It's 3 o'clock in the morning and that's why I think this sounds good." And so I shut the computer down and then the next day I came back and thought, let me just mix it down and listen to it in my car and see what I think. I thought, my voice sounds ridiculous but there's something here. I started showing it to some of my friends and some of my friends laughed at me. Other friends really loved it and so I thought something has to be here if people are this divided about it. At Chant4Change, C.C. White heard our group perform, heard Acyuta Gopi, our female lead singer, and said, "This is amazing. I want to do something with you guys." And then it hit me like a lightbulb. I said, "C.C., would you be willing to record?" She agreed, came to the studio, took the tracks that I had, redid the leads, added solos and harmonies and used my old tracks to mix our voices together. Though it's only two voices it sounds like an entire gospel choir. She was so sweet and kind and comes from a Christian background. She's a professional singer who has performed with Ben Harper and some of the great musicians in the world. I told her that I didn't have a lot of money, only a tiny bit I could offer and although she took the check that I gave her, she never cashed it.
RockOm: So our diverse RockOm users should not be afraid of the word kirtan, because even sitting in the pews of a church, they are practicing a form of kirtan?
Gaura: For sure. The word kirtan means "to glorify." It just means to make glory unto the Lord. That's what we're doing in kirtan and that's what most of the traditions already do. I think this is the time for us put aside everything that we disagree on and say, "We could spend an eternity fighting or we could spend an eternity cooperating, uplifting, and empowering each other in whatever way we can." That's what I think is the essence of every "religion" of the world.
RockOm: What are As Kindred Spirits' plans for the future?
Gaura: We're about to go on tour of the left Coast, then to London, then we'll be at Bhakifest. We're touring the Northeast after that, then Australia and South Africa. We are to tie a garland around the world of God's holy names. Aside from that is Chant4Chant around the holidays. All of these things are being put on in cooperation with our brand new record label, Mantralogy. Mantra is a sanskrit word which means to transcend or deliver. It's the idea of sound as a way to uplift and deliver our hearts and minds from our bondage. So Mantralogy is the name of our new record label and the producers of Chant4Change. We're bringing new artists on to our label now starting with an amazing group from South Florida called The Mayapuris. They're a kirtan group who do hip-hop music and pop-rock music. It is a very exciting time for us and for our projects.
Corey Smith definitely has a fire of unconventional conviction in him. You can hear this faith, as he describes it, “a calling to be honest and real,” in his music and can witness it at sold-out shows across the country. Smith’s incredibly energetic live shows, combined with clever, well-crafted lyrics and a soulful Southern voice has earned him an enthusiastic legion of fans. Smith says, “It really starts with a song. It’s just about writing songs that, for one reason or another, connect with people and impact their lives.”
Smith’s roots are in rural Jefferson, Georgia but his dreams of becoming a singer-songwriter were fueled by the diversity and sounds of nearby Athens, Georgia. Smith has long since paid his dues penning such anthem-style, crowd rousing sing-a-longs like “Twenty-One,” “I’m Not Gonna Cry,” and “The Wreckage.”
Smith has taken full advantage of the internet - or you might say the internet has taken advantage of him. His music is readily available for fans, old and new to download and even share without too much concern for profitability. Smith explains it this way, "I get asked if I mind when someone burns my music. I'm just flattered that people want to."
In July 2008 Smith released his fifth album - a six-song EP recorded live at The Georgia Theatre in his adopted hometown of Athens, GA. As you’ll hear in the podcast accompanying these brief interview excerpts, 2009 finds Smith writing new songs for yet another CD due out in the fall, which is sure to keep him touring well into the future and continuing on in his much deserved success.
RockOm: I’ve read where as you were growing up you loved singing gospel. You still enjoy singing gospel?
Corey Smith: I think I sing gospel music. I think my music is very religious, especially the stuff I write now. It’s not what you would normally hear in church, but it’s my form of gospel. I grew up in a fundamental Southern Baptist home, raised largely by my grandparents. The church had a big impact on me; it was where I learned how to sing and where I was first exposed to live music through the church choir. It was probably my bedrock as a musician. Later on, a lot of the things that I learned to listen to was in reaction to that. As I got older I didn’t want anything to do with gospel or country music because it was what my parents and grandparents listen to. I wanted to rock. In high school I was listening to alternative music, all the 90’s rock, and gangster rap and such. But it was largely a reaction against my upbringing.
RockOm: Tell me about that spark, that line, melody or lyric that suddenly appears in your head and starts a new song.
Corey Smith: It’s euphoric and very spiritual. At some point in the writing process when I feel like I’ve got the spark, that the song is on its way, I’ll say a silent prayer, just like “Thank you.” I do believe that for me the music comes from God. My whole experience as a musician is a part of a much longer, deeper relationship with God. It’s not traditional; it’s a much different relationship than I thought I would ever have [with God] as a kid. It’s something that goes beyond what I learned in church. To me, even the songs that have cussing in them and are about raunchy things - it’s still God. My calling is to be honest and real and sometimes it’s hard for people to listen, but I try to stay focused when I’m writing on not censoring myself so much. For me, now, it’s really largely about the music letting the melody dictate what the song is going to be [about]. Having the music parts, to me, those are the parts that get me excited. When I hear the melody that’s when I feel like I’m really channeling something. Then I’ll let the melody inspire an emotion or mood or idea that will then turn into the words.
The entirety of RockOm’s interview with Corey Smith can be heard at the RockOm.net podcast for the week of May 28, 2009.
Generally, the idea of "sacred jazz" either brings to mind Duke Ellington's three sacred concerts or causes confusion in the minds of those who are not cognizant of what is "sacred" or "jazz". Is it John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Mary Lou Williams' Black Christ of the Andes or Ahmad Jamal's After Fajr? In all these cases, yes. In the broad sense of what is "sacred," the common thread that exists among the aforementioned references pays respect to the devotion to a supernatural being, considered to be higher than us. As for jazz, of course, you gotta swing, but so many people want to make jazz so many things. (Really, must we?) My search for clarification in this field was prompted by my recent participation in a jazz series that focused on "The Sacred Side of Jazz," where I demonstrated the connection between jazz and gospel music via hymns, Negro spirituals and the blues.
When you get right down to it, the term "sacred jazz" becomes somewhat redundant because the nascence of jazz is in sacred music! Do you think Jelly Roll Morton (who probably did invent piano jazz) simply stumbled upon "Wild Man Blues" without ever hearing a gospel blues? It's doubtful he could have spent five years in Chicago and not have ever crossed paths with Rev. Thomas Dorsey or Mahalia Jackson. The stamp of "sacred jazz" is actually rather generic, mainly because it covers such a wide array of artistic concepts. As a child, "jazz" and "sacred" had always intersected in my playing: from bluesy treatments of hymns like "Amazing Grace" or "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior" in my father's Baptist church to Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas, Baby" while entertaining family friends.
For me, there was never a conscious aesthetic separation of gospel and secular music, but I had enough good sense not to subject the congregation to "Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On" during the offering. Thomas Dorsey and Rosetta Tharpe met with much angst from church folks who insisted they perform on "one side of the fence or the other." Fortunately, my parents never vexed me in that area, so I was free to explore and develop my own farrago of diverse musical worlds, leaning towards a sound influenced by musical and personal experiences, biblical teachings, Negro spirituals, the blues, swing and a heavy groove.
My music is influenced by a spiritual foundation (specifically, God's spirit, in this case), which encourages me to remain focused on the reason I was born with the gift He gave me—to praise Him. In addition, I share that love and desire with the audience, with the hope that they can be reeled into my spiritual space, to be entertained and blessed by the experience.
For years, my notion was to learn and perform the 'standard' jazz repertoire, composing songs that sounded like standards and generally to honor the brilliant creators—from Armstrong to Waller—that laid it all out before me, while offering the occasional 'tribute' to my spiritual background. Fortunately (and hopefully for most of us) life changes force us to be wisely flexible; as brilliant artists-to-be, we learn that the music doesn't end with the lessons of our youth. On the contrary, it only begins there, laying the groundwork and leading us down the paths we trod towards the excellence of our more mature years in the arts. Merging my personal life with my music has become more than merely composing some swing ditty and pasting God's name in the title. Boldly and unabashedly, I put my love, honor and thanks to God at the forefront of my music—before the transcribed solos, Hanon exercises, repertoire—even the commitment to swinging.
Many jazz artists encountered a "spiritual awakening" on personal and musical planes later in life: Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, John Coltrane as referenced earlier. For others, the awareness was apparent earlier on: Yusef Lateef, Ahmad Jamal. Even though all don't pay tribute to the same deity, the vibration in the music of an individual genuinely connected to his faith cannot be ignored—even if you don't identify with his spiritual philosophy. There is music for music's sake and then there is music that encompasses a deeper purpose.
Of a somewhat less "faith-based" intent, is what has been referred to as "funky jazz" or "soul-jazz". This would be jazz that parrots the sound of Black church music and is more contrived than reverent. Popular jazz hits like Horace Silver's "The Preacher," Billy Page's "The In Crowd" (as performed by Ramsey Lewis) or Bobby Timmons' "This Here" were mostly funneled through artists' impressions of gospel music. It's much like listening to dyed-in-the-wool jazz musicians play Latin or funk—without a full immersion in the experience. Perhaps, this is where the divide begins with regard to sacred versus secular; whereas one implies an honoring and worshiping, the other has a slightly exploitive dynamic that, over the years, has continued to nosedive into poor imitations, the end result being some minstrel-type exhibition by individuals who have no real clue of the value and essence of a spiritual experience.
My recent challenge to connect gospel music with jazz music effectively has ignited a brushfire that sweeps through my bones. Early on, I heeded the jazz curriculum to the letter. As I continue to move through life, my purpose becomes much clearer and now I am moved to invoke the sentiments of Duke Ellington, expressed before he performed his first sacred concert: "Now, I can say openly and loudly what I have been saying to myself on knees."
It's the voice. That husky contralto that packs so much depth and authority. It'll stop you cold.
Mavis Staples suddenly burst into song when she started talking excitedly about recording her jaw-dropping 2007 album We'll Never Turn Back with producer-guitarist Ry Cooder. "Ry didn't want do it (record 'Jesus Is On the Main Line') so I just started singing while he had his back turned and was tuning his guitar," Staples said before she started belting the opening lines of the gospel standard. "Jesus is on that mainline, tell him what you want," Staples sang over the phone. "Jesus is on that mainline, tell him what you want... You've gotta call him up and tell him what you want."
Staples brought her unmistakable voice — which has only gotten more commanding with age — to Tallahassee, FL this past week when she kicked off the marathon that is the Seven Days of Opening Nights arts festival. She shared the bill at Bethel AME Church with fellow gospel travelers The Blind Boys of Alabama, who won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award and another one for best gospel album of the year at this year's Grammy Awards.
In 2005, Staples also picked up a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for her work in the ground-breaking Staple Singers. The family singing group started performing in the pulpit before they crossed over into Top 40 radio in the '70s at Stax Records in Memphis, Tenn. Their 1972 No. 1 hit "I'll Take You There" raised a lot of eyebrows back at their church.
"They wanted us out of the church," Staples said. "They weren't listening to the lyrics. All they saw was the kids dancing to our song." Then Staples started singing again: "I know a place, ain't nobody cryin', ain't nobody worried, ain't no smilin' faces lyin' to the races."
Wow. It's really hard to concentrate when she does that. "We were talking about heaven," Staples said. "Where else could we be taking you but to heaven? They eventually invited us back to church. And when we got there, the first song they asked us to sing was 'I'll Take You There.' "
In the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story (which takes its name from a Top 20 song by The Staples Singers), Staples made a very astute observation when she said: "The devil ain't got no music — it's all God's music." "I still believe that," Staples said. "It is all God's music." If Otis Redding was the superstar of Stax Records and Rufus Thomas was the comic relief and Isaac Hayes was the sex symbol, then The Staple Singers were the American institution's spiritual soul. "Lives were changed after you heard Mavis Staples," Stax co-owner Al Bell said in the documentary.
The Staples made a very memorable appearance at Wattstax, a massive concert held in the Los Angeles Coliseum in August 1972 as soul music's much funkier answer to Woodstock. Tickets cost $1 apiece.
"Originally we weren't booked to play Wattstax," Staples said. "We were working at the Sands in Las Vegas opening the show for Sammy Davis, Jr. We couldn't take off. Then Sammy shut the show down for one night to meet with Richard Nixon. You've probably seen that picture (of Nixon and Davis laughing it up onstage). We said, 'We don't have to work tonight, let's go to Wattstax.' It was so amazing. We'd never played in front of 100,000 people before. We played in the morning. Had chicken for lunch and then drove back to Las Vegas."
Unfortunately, bad business deals and mounting bank loans forced Stax to close its doors on McLemore Avenue in 1975. The famed studio, which was housed in an old movie theater, was bulldozed in 1989.
"That was so sad," Staples said. "I don't understand to this day how Memphis let this happen. All we had was a memory... Motown had all the cute stuff but Stax had the funk and the gut." A replica of the studio, called The Stax Museum of American Soul Music, was built on the same McLemore lot and opened in 2003.
Staples spent most of her solo career working with a variety of high-profile producers — Prince, Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Wexler, Bob Dylan, Steve Cropper and others. But Cooder has a special place in her heart. "I feel like ("We'll Never Turn Back") is the best album I've ever done," Staples said. "I'm really proud of that album. I've worked with a lot of geniuses but Ry Cooder is the elder genius."
The songs on "We'll Never Turn Back" were all culled from the Civil Rights era when folk music ruled the Earth. But the raw, stripped-down, gutbucket approach taken by Cooder and Staples sure doesn't sound like some old hippie folk singer strumming a sanitized version of, let's say, "Eyes on the Prize." Astonishingly, all the cuts on the disc were done on the first take.
"Usually, when I'm recording, I like to get a list of the songs the night before and rehearse them at the hotel before we get in the studio," Staples said. "But Ry kept the songs a secret until I got to the studio. He wanted to keep everything spontaneous. ... After I sang the first few songs, I went in and asked if we were ready to lay them down (on tracks). Ry said, 'They're already done.' And I said, 'I like the way you work.' "
Cooder also encouraged Staples to ad lib during the songs by telling stories about her visits to the Jim Crow South as a little girl. She also riffed about personal heroes such as her dad Pops Staples, gospel legend Mahalia Jackson and Martin Luther King Jr. The Staple Singers often warmed up the crowds with a few songs before King spoke in the '60s.
"When I was a little girl, I thought of him (King) as just one of Pops' friends," Staples said. "It was only after he was gone (that) I started realizing how great he really was." When asked how she liked to personally remember King, the singer was silent for a moment. "My fondest memory was his laughter," Staples said. "He looks so serious and so sad in pictures but he had this joyful laugh. We'd be on our way to a meeting or a rally and Dr. King would be standing in a circle with the rest of the men telling jokes and laughing. You could hear his laugh over all the rest of them."
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Being who you are won’t always please your parents. The American film classic St. Louis Blues depicts musician W.C. Handy (1873-1958, pictured) as a pioneer, betraying his minister father who believed “there are only two kinds of music, the Devil’s and the Lord’s.” In marrying hymns and gospel music to blues and jazz, Handy became a legend known as The Father of the Blues. His memory has been honored annually for the past 28 years at the 
"The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues, on one hand - running away; gospel, the Mighty Clouds of Joy - running towards." 
RockOm: You founded As Kindred Spirits in 1998 with your percussionist and associate Shyam Kishore, who had studied under [
RockOm: What are the similarities and differences as you lead kirtan in different parts of the world?
Corey Smith definitely has a fire of unconventional conviction in him. You can hear this faith, as he describes it, “a calling to be honest and real,” in his music and can witness it at sold-out shows across the country. Smith’s incredibly energetic live shows, combined with clever, well-crafted lyrics and a soulful Southern voice has earned him an enthusiastic legion of fans. Smith says, “It really starts with a song. It’s just about writing songs that, for one reason or another, connect with people and impact their lives.”
Corey Smith: It’s euphoric and very spiritual. At some point in the writing process when I feel like I’ve got the spark, that the song is on its way, I’ll say a silent prayer, just like “Thank you.” I do believe that for me the music comes from God. My whole experience as a musician is a part of a much longer, deeper relationship with God. It’s not traditional; it’s a much different relationship than I thought I would ever have [with God] as a kid. It’s something that goes beyond what I learned in church. To me, even the songs that have cussing in them and are about raunchy things - it’s still God. My calling is to be honest and real and sometimes it’s hard for people to listen, but I try to stay focused when I’m writing on not censoring myself so much. For me, now, it’s really largely about the music letting the melody dictate what the song is going to be [about]. Having the music parts, to me, those are the parts that get me excited. When I hear the melody that’s when I feel like I’m really channeling something. Then I’ll let the melody inspire an emotion or mood or idea that will then turn into the words.
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