Press

The spirit moves them

Gospel music is back, bigger than ever and thriving at House of Blues and county fair.

By Sandi Dolbee

RELIGION & ETHICS EDITOR / San Diego Union - Tribune

June 23, 2005

Gospel has come knocking at San Diego's door.

From this month's debut of Sunday gospel brunches at the new House of Blues in downtown San Diego to this weekend's daylong gospel festival at the San Diego County Fair in Del Mar, the music with roots in the early African-American church is flowering.

(NADIA BOROWSKI SCOTT / Union-Tribune)

(Sylvia St. James performed at San Diego's House of Blues).

The headliners at the fair festival on Saturday - Yolanda Adams and the Mary Mary singing duo - are hotter than Borrego in August.

And the national stats bear witness to a surge: record sales increased more than 80 percent between 1995 and 2004, according to the Gospel Music Association.

Saturday's "Soul of San Diego Gospel Festival" is testimony to another relatively new addition to the local gospel scene - the year-old radio station KURS/AM 1040, a joint enterprise between radio personality Larry "Preacherman" Thompson and the Rev. Timothy Winters, pastor of Bayview Baptist Church, one of San Diego's largest African-American congregations. KURS is working with the fair to present an array of performers, capped off by Adams and Mary Mary.

"I feel like gospel is really making a comeback," said Eddie Baltrip, leader of a well-known local gospel choir, Eddie Baltrip and Fulfillment. "I feel like it has been put in the back for so long that people are now starting to recognize the power that it has, and the inspiration and the hope that it brings. And it's good, solid music, period."

Baltrip and his singers were at the House of Blues June 12, sharing the stage with Sylvia St. James, who for the past dozen years has traveled from city to city to help the chain of restaurant/nightclubs launch these gospel brunches.

It was the second week of sold-out brunches here, and when the curtain opened, St. James stood on stage in her familiar billowing white gown and hat, looking like a Southern belle who just stepped off a movie set. Her opening number is the one she usually does: "Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus.""

Before long, the people in the audience were on their feet waving their white napkins in celebration of songs that are both rousing and religious.

"Gospel music is spirit-full music. It touches the spirit in all of us," explains St. James. "It transcends age. It transcends race. It transcends religions. It transcends everything."

Elvis Presley called gospel music "the purest thing there is on this earth."

History gives the credit to an African-American composer named Thomas A. Dorsey, often called the father of gospel music, who was born in 1899 to a preacher father and a church-organist mother. The songs that he wrote – among them: "Peace in the Valley" and "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" – joined blues and jazz to the Bible. Dorsey called them gospel songs.

The music made people want to get up out of their pews (although some churches initially resisted the new rhythms). It didn't take long before a singer named Rosetta Tharpe began performing them in nightclubs – spawning a wave of African-American singers who would popularize gospel music in the secular world.

There was Mahalia Jackson. Sam Cooke (who came out of a group called the Soul Stirrers). The Edwin Hawkins Singers. From Carnegie Hall to "The Ed Sullivan Show," gospel music became a part of Americana.

As the audience grew, so did the art and the artists. White singers joined in with their own adaptations – from country crooner Hank Williams to contemporary Christian pop performers Amy Grant and Steven Curtis Chapman. The 4,500-member Gospel Music Association, formed in 1964 and based in Nashville, encompasses under its umbrella categories ranging from rock to Latin.

San Diego singer Baltrip welcomes the expansion. "I love it," said Baltrip, who is the music minister for North Park Apostolic Church. "What it's telling me is that the gospel is not just for the African-American, but it is for everybody."

If there is a common bond, it's that gospel singers are both performing music and giving their personal testimony.

"Most everyone behind the music has a story," said St. James, the House of Blues' chief mistress of ceremonies who is from Los Angeles. She wears her story on her neck, a thin necklace of a scar that reminds her of an injury that could have destroyed her singing career. "I know when I hear my own voice, that's the power of God."

There is no mistaking that the songs are Christian. And like Baltrip and St. James, the other gospel artists tend to be faith-based.

Gospel star Yolanda Adams was a schoolteacher singing part time to religious audiences before her career took off. Sisters Erica and Tina Campbell chose the stage name "Mary Mary" in honor of Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Jesus, in the Gospels.

"So far, to my knowledge, nobody's been offended," said St. James. "Hopefully, everybody knows when they're coming to a gospel brunch, this is what it is."

The House of Blues launched its first Sunday gospel brunch in 1992, after the opening of the first venue in Cambridge, Mass., as a home for music and cuisine inspired by African-American cultural contributions.

Founder Isaac Tigrett thought that the blues were so connected to the songs of the African-American church that they needed to be a part of this enterprise, according to Heidi Hoff, marketing director of the House of Blues venues.

From Orlando to Las Vegas, the clubs have turned Sundays over to gospel. But the brunches aren't intended to be just for one race or one faith.

Arching over the San Diego stage is a House of Blues slogan, "Unity in Diversity," along with symbols from the world's religions – from Buddhism to Islam to Judaism. The brunches, according to Hoff, are intended to unite Jew and gentile, Christian and nonbeliever, in a "moment of grace to celebrate something from the soul."

The San Diego audience June 12 was a mix of white and black, with varying degrees of religiosity. They spent the first hour eating - the menu is a Southern-style buffet with the usual grits and fried chicken, along with items like peel-and-eat shrimp and fresh fruit - and the second hour on their feet.

"It's uplifting without being preachy," said Carsten Kroon, 34, who lives in Mission Valley. His wife liked the energy in the room. "It's exciting," said Denise Andrade-Kroon, 33.

They don't regularly attend church. Likewise, Denise Quan considers herself more spiritual than religious. "I loved it," said the 28-year-old North Park woman. "Even if you are not religious, anyone can relate to it."

For others, the theme is as important as the backdrop.

"I'm a Christian, and I absolutely just love the message," said Theresa Millette, 51, of Coronado, who grew up listening to gospel music.

Erisa Johnson believes there is a special power in gospel music. "I describe my music as a universal language because it doesn't have any words," said the 19-year-old Bayview Baptist Church member who played a saxophone solo at the brunch and is scheduled to also perform at Saturday's festival at the fair. "I just try to capture their souls and turn them to Christ."

And so the beat goes on.

Eddie Baltrip and Fulfillment expect to come out with a new CD in July. They also have been tapped to perform the second Sunday of each month at the local House of Blues.

St. James, who also is slated to be at the fair Saturday afternoon, is getting ready to launch the gospel brunch at the soon-to-open House of Blues in Atlantic City. For her, gospel is eternal: "The music will be here long after we're gone."