“Blues, gospel music part of Texas' cultural soundtrack - Dallas Morning News” plus 1 more

Blues, gospel music part of Texas' cultural soundtrack - Dallas Morning News

Posted: 28 Nov 2010 10:06 AM PST

12:09 PM CST on Sunday, November 28, 2010

By JOSH BIRNBAUM / The Dallas Morning News

Blues is not dead – yet.

Many famous bluesmen and soul singers have come out of Texas: Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker and Freddie King, just to name a few.

Dallas still has a bustling blues culture, at R.L. Blues Palace and Tucker's Blues, just to name a couple. This photo essay is about the roots of blues, gospel and soul in East Texas; it is a glimpse into the culture, history and motivations of the music.

This is a journey into the soul of Deep Texas.

Lona Strange

The lovely Lona Ree English Strange is a 93-year-old gospel singer who can belt a tune with more soul and conviction than any recording artist you will find. That is because Lona's music is her music, not anybody else's.

"All my life," Strange says. "It's a part of me."

Strange attends services at Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in Crockett, a small town north of Houston. She has been going there since 1942, when she helped build the church with four other women. She is the last living original member of the church.

"I was young then, and I could work and I wanted a church," Strange says. "We was determined to do it."

So began a lifetime dedicated to the music of the Lord.

Strange sang, for me and it nearly put me into shock. She starting off with one her "daddy loves so well," a rendition of "Since I Laid My Burden Down."

She started off slow and timid with the "Glory Glory" part of the song, but by the third word, "Hallelujah," she was able to pull some deep notes that must have come from some other place. her words echoed through the halls of the empty church and bounced back emphatically at me.

The church's pastor, Rev. Harry Fred Scott, helps her along like a one-man backing choir. He gleams with pride."This region of East Texas is such an incredible wealth of any kind of music you can think of," Scott said. "It's a crossroads."

K.M. Williams

"I had a born-again experience, an actual conversion," the Rev. K.M. Williams says. "At that point, my musical abilities seemed to just multiply. It was like a gift."

Rev. Williams was playing guitar in a corner of the Alligator Café in Dallas, trying to be heard over the din of the crowd. Dressed in a black suit and wearing a black preacher's hat, he was playing mostly deep blues tunes, originals with names like "I Don't Want No Skinny Woman" and "Preach These Blues."

Williams is also the associate pastor of Wayman Chapel in Ennis, where he leads songs and prayer every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening.

"I don't differentiate between gospel music and blues," he says. "It's kind of all the same to me because it comes from the same source. Really, all black music started from spirituals or work songs."

In fact, many of the early blues masters were also preachers. Blind Lemon Jefferson was called Deacon L.J. Bates on his first records, and Charlie Patton and Son House were both preachers.

Williams' new album was released on Dialtone Records on Sept. 1, but that's not changing anything in his life.

"They call me the Texas Country Blues Preacher," Williams says. "I can preach you the blues, or I can play you the blues. I'm kind of a throwback to a generation, but I just happen to be in this generation doing it."

Greater Mt. Moriah Baptist Church

Many of the old gospel traditions are still upheld by this generation, such as revivals that continue to use the old-style music in new contexts.

As soon as the four-hour service begins, Charles Easterling preaches from the pulpit as his wife's keyboard chords punctuate his points from the corner of the room. A storm is brewing outside, and the windows turn a deep blue, lightning and thunder shake the room, and the lights flicker as the power goes on and off. But they keep on reviving.

"Praise the Lord, play those things, make a joyful noise unto the Lord!" Easterling says to his musicians and choir in Crockett.

After the revival is over close to midnight, congregants commune over a fish fry in the church's dining hall.

The pastor believes music is man's connection to God. He and his wife have been preaching together at Mt. Moriah for five years now.

Both the pastor and his wife are looking forward to the next life – and to the music they will play when they get there.

"I tell my wife, 'You know what, baby? When all this over down here, we gonna be able to go home and sing in the heavenly choir,' " Easterling says confidently. "You got to know that you going home to live with the Lord and sing in that angelic choir."

'How did you start singing?'

"How did you come upon gospel music?"

Strange meets the question with silence and a stare.

New question: "How did you discover gospel music?"

Still silence. Finally, "How did you start singing?"

She reacts immediately, saying, "Oh, you mean my singing? My church music?"

To her – a member of an older generation who has survived into this one – gospel music is what her parents sang to her on their way to church in a wagon. It is what she sang in church all her life. It is what she does now to praise God.

"It dwells in your heart, and you just feel the spirit moving in your heart," Strange says. "As long as the Lord let me, as long as he give me the voice, I'm going to do my best."

Josh Birnbaum completed this project while an intern at The News. He's now a freelance photographer based in Ohio.

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Cultural exchange at the Potteries - ESPN Soccernet

Posted: 27 Nov 2010 12:16 PM PST

Stoke City 1-1 Manchester City

By Richard Jolly, Britannia Stadium
(Archive)

Eleven months ago, amid predictions of a swift culture shock, Roberto Mancini began his reign at Manchester City by facing Stoke. Such prophecies proved premature then, but the reminder that English football remains a foreign game was not pleasant.

AssociatedVincent Kompany reflects on a late equaliser for Stoke

• Stoke 1-1 Man City: Late Potters show
• Pulis aims dig at Mancini

"It is difficult to play football [here] - long ball, long ball, long ball," Mancini said, rather ignoring the fact that his side were denied by a combination of a glorious backheel, executed by Tuncay, and a finish of admirable accuracy, from Matthew Etherington, neither exactly endangering any passing aircraft.

But then Serie A may not contain an equivalent of Stoke. That is not a sophisticate sneering, either. The work ethic, the organisation and the obvious spirit show their strengths. "You can have all the money in the world, all the top players, but a team going out there - and we played as a team, as one - it takes a lot of beating," Tony Pulis said. His side are greater than the sum of their parts. At the moment, the same cannot be said of Mancini's.

Playing 4-4-2, with two strapping strikers and two quick, direct wingers, onlookers at the Britannia Stadium can get a primal thrill. The tactics may have been devised in the 1980s, an era of tactical uniformity, but they have been allied with an added touch of invention that has been financed by Peter Coates and recruited by Pulis.

And Stoke play with an intensity that appeared alien to Mancini and Manchester City. A point procured by an injury-time equaliser can be deemed lucky. In this case, it was unfortunate. As most - though certainly not Mancini himself - felt, Stoke merited all three.

The style of play and the intimidating atmosphere mean that results at the Britannia Stadium appear to acquire a significance that extends beyond the simple scoreline. Manchester United, perhaps fortunately, scored a late goal to win in the Potteries. Comparisons between the neighbours have an inevitability and, when Manchester City struck in the final few minutes, they were on course to emulate them. Instead, Etherington scored even later.

In the opening half-hour, however, it was easier to liken Manchester City to Liverpool, overwhelmed at the Britannia a fortnight earlier. Yet such has been the emphasis on size in the recruitment drive at Eastlands that few teams should be better equipped for a trip to the land of the giants. Apart from Carlos Tevez and David Silva, Mancini's side is packed with powerful, physical players.

Yet they were reeling as Jermaine Pennant, Ricardo Fuller, Robert Huth and Etherington subjected the visitors' goal to a bombardment. As Pulis noted, the interplay between Kenwyne Jones and Fuller, when the Jamaican spurned the clearest chance, was delightful. It was only the lack of a clinical touch that deprived them of the lead.

Instead, Manchester City took that, three minutes after James Milner had kneed the ball off his own line to prevent Jones scoring with the same part of his anatomy after Etherington's corner brought chaos in the visitors' box.

Some 80 yards away, Milner supplied the pass that Micah Richards collected to drive a shot across goal and in at the far post. Some respite in a testing afternoon against Etherington, it also appeared decisive. Yet it was only his side's fourth shot on target and, in an indictment of the more attacking players, the third from a full-back.

It placed Mancini's post-match comments in doubt. "I am disappointed with the result because we deserved to win," he said. Pulis' retort was brief and to the point. "What game was he watching?" he asked. "I'll leave it to the experts to decide."

AssociatedMario Balotelli made little impact at the Britannia

His side's superiority was epitomised by the two left wingers. Mario Balotelli's comeback was, understandably, less explosive than his last league game, when he scored twice and was sent off against West Brom. On his return, Mancini noted, "he didn't talk with the referee". He didn't influence the game, either. This, it is safe to say, was a novel experience.

But Stoke's considerable energy is married with increasing quality, and that was illustrated when Jones won a flick-on, Tuncay provided the backheel and Etherington the finish.

MAN OF THE MATCH: Matthew Etherington. There are bargains aplenty in this Stoke side, but Etherington ranks among Pulis' finest signings. He was excellent again, as he has been for much of his time at the Britannia.

STOKE VERDICT: Denied a fourth successive league win - which would have been their best run in the top flight since 1973 - Stoke nonetheless showed that, after a run of five straight defeats, their revival is continuing well. While Pennant went off at half-time, there is a real boldness to Pulis' tactics when he and Etherington operate as out-and-out wingers. That is helped by unselfish performers like Dean Whitehead, quietly useful in the centre of midfield.

MAN CITY VERDICT: There was little of the free-flowing football displayed at Fulham six days earlier. At least Mancini's men survived the early onslaught, but the familiar criticism - that they are too defensive - might well be voiced again. Nor was the manager proactive with his changes, leaving the introduction of Adam Johnson until late on.

Cultural

Sunday, November 28, 2010