I’m afraid I’m having to do some catch up. I’m feeling like I left my last post a little incomplete. So in an effort to be thorough and give you all of the components to that post, I’m posting one version of the hymn ‘Jesus is Real To Me’ taken from The Negro Church Music LP by Alan Lomax. Alan Lomax was responsible for actually going out into the field and documenting MUCH of the original gospel music and blues. …For documenting the music the music of black culture. As I’m writing this, my brain is wanting desperately to go off on another tangent. …I’ll make it brief okay?
So there is an artist by the name of Weldon Irvine: BRILLIANT BRILLIANT man. I will spare you a dissertation, but promise me you’ll google him. Major contributor to the music world but unfortunately took his own life a few years ago. They say at the time of his death, he was in the process of founding a church for artists. ….A church for artists??!!!! Can you imagine how wonderful that would be? I’ve thought about this before very informally. So to hear that someone was actually in the process of DOING it just made me celebrate inside. But as you’ve probably gathered by now, for some of us there is no separation between God and Art or Worship and Creativity and “the process”. I didn’t learn about Weldon until after his passing. But when I read of his “unfinished business” I have to say it made me a little sad …screw that, A LOT SAD. Sad that he left the planet before bringing that goal to fruition. Knowing the genius of its founder, I really believe it would have changed everything for countless creative souls and spiritual beings on the planet. I would imagine it probably would have offered a “validation” of sorts to many of them. As much as artists appear to be the kind that don’t care what people think or are somehow beyond validation, I think many of them are just better at making it look like they don’t. Myself included. Artists may not require validation for their work, but always wants to feel like in some way they are not so “foreign” after all. I think most remedy this by simply surrounding themselves with like minds or staying in circles that accomodate who we are and provide the “room” to BE that. The same rule applies in people thinking that artists are these “atheist rebels” with no spiritual foundation and/or morality even! But I guarantee you, they got “religion” alright, just not in the way that most have been taught to understand it. …Perhaps it just wasn’t meant for Weldon to carry that out. Perhaps it is someone elses responsibility. …Who knows. …I will continue to wonder.
The other day during some of my many facebook rants I mentioned something about SunRa. A friend of mine commented that he didn’t know
I was into SunRa. I commented back telling him I was very much into SunRa! And that for no one else but SunRa was I guilty of being a proselytizer! 😉
…Well, SunRa and now The Berlin Reunion and The Theatre de Luxe. What can I say, …. except, church is over ya’ll! “God be with you until we meet again!!!” Enjoy the vids! hehe!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vRApuWHfJI]
And for the sake of balance, some Weldon Irvine: You are missed and your influence is welcomed.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBvCeNbFMZg]
