I have a very strange vision: A vocal group based in North Idaho singing a mix of sacred choral music and black gospel in the quartet style from the 1950’s. Those are two pretty disparate styles of music but I have a great love for and a desire to sing both of them, and I need a group to do that!
My love for gospel quartet music began in 1985. Harrison Ford’s character in the movie Witness was fixing his car while Sam Cooke’s ‘Wonderful World’ played on the car radio. I had make it to my junior year in college without even knowing Sam Cooke’s name, but I loved the song. I sat through the credits to find Cooke’s name – this was 1985 so I couldn’t exactly look it up on the internet – then headed to Tower Records for a vinyl copy of The Best of Sam Cooke. More research – in the library because the internet still hadn’t been invented – led me back to Tower Records for an album of gospel music by The Soul Stirrers – the group that Cooke was the lead singer of before he crossed over to pop music. That led me to other gospel quartets and groups from the 50’s – the Swan Silvertones, the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Davis Sisters, the Caravans and the Ward Singers. Not a standard record collection for a white kid from Idaho I suppose. Some highlights:
- The Last Mile of the Way – The Soul Stirrers w/Sam Cooke
- The Swan Silvertones – My Rock
- The Swan Silvertones – Take the Lord
My love of sacred choral music has both earlier and later roots. I was singing in church choirs as young as I can remember. Jean Terhark – the choir director at Coeur d’Alene High School and the best teacher of any subject and at any level I have ever studied under – made sure that all of us sang parts of The Messiah at least once while in high school. I sang in The Mendicants, an a capella vocal group at Stanford University. I then took a long break from organized choirs, eventually moved to Seoul and joined the Camarata Chamber Singers. Dr. Ryan Goessl introduced me to new (to me) choral works that I have since fallen in love with, including:
- Spaséniye (Salvation is Created) by Pavel Tchesnokov
- O Magnum Mysterium by Morten Lauridsen
- Congratulamini Mihi by Tomás Luis de Victoria
Am I imagining a group that will do all of this? I am. Probably crazy, but please contact me if you think this might be worth trying!
Tom's strange musical vision 