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Throughout
East Texas are hundreds of gospel
music venues where people gather on weekends to hear songs that you’ll hear only
in churches.
In recent weeks, Doris and I have sat in pews in places like
Lala Hill in southern Angelina County, Chireno
in Nacogdoches County, Shelbyville
in Shelby County, Athens in Henderson
County and other places where the old gospel songs are still cherished with the
same appreciation as a good apple pie.
In most of the venues, the sole
musical instrument is a piano, but guitars, fiddles, banjos and a few saxophones
are showing up with increasingly frequency, likely because gospel music is attracting
new converts like young people.
It’s a welcome trend, too. The gospel songs
are getting better.
In
the older and traditional country churches, the gospel songs come from the songbooks
you’ll find in each pew. Here are a few of the most popular gospel renditions:
Where could
I go but to the Lord.Bringing
in the Sheaves.Revive
us again. On
Higher Ground.Heavenly
Sunlight.Love
Lifted Me Onward
Christian Soldiers.Standing
on the Promises. When
the Saints Go Marching In.I’ll
Fly Away I
Love to Tell the Story.
There
is little formality at a gospel singing. Men show up in overalls and blue jeans,
kids come in their play clothes, and women arrive in simple house dresses. But
they all have one thing in common: they love to sing.
At Lala Hill, one
of the younger musicians said a teacher offered to give him voice lessions, but
he added: “I wanted to hunt coons instead.”
I keep hoping that someone
will put together a directory of gospel singings in East
Texas so that gospel-lovers will know when and were the singings take place.
© Bob
Bowman August
6, 2011 Column
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Bowman's East Texas
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