I think we need a good Catholic Gospel Quartet to help evangelize. It could be called The Evangelists-Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They'd go around the country singing in churches and sharing the gospel and perhaps have a traveling display of relics or some such. They'd do quartet arrangements of Hail Holy Queen and Faith of Our Fathers and Holy God we Praise Thy Name and all that old Catholic stuff. Of course they'd have to have matching suits and short hair cuts with pompadours and a smiling honky tonk piano player with big hair...
I think it could be a genuine hit.
The Fratres Statler?
ReplyDeleteLove this idea!!!!!
ReplyDeleteFr. I grew up in N.C. and all the TV channels ran south gospel music programs all morning (til 11:00am anyway when the local Protestant Church servcies were televised). I've bought a lot of the Gaither series videos of all the old singers.
ReplyDeleteI often fantasized about taking that kind of music to Catholics and also singing 'our stuff' in a souther gospel 'style'
Awesome idea. I've always loved men's quartets! I have always been a little wistful listening to them since I don't find women's voices to be quite as conducive to that style. Barber shop quartets, too. Though, I often sang in ensembles. I was in a quality church choir from age 4, and I deeply miss this strong singing tradition as much as I love being Catholic. It is almost impossible to communicate to my friends who are all East Coast cradle Catholics just how central the music tradition was growing up. I wonder if the difference is simply that Protestants have no liturgy to fall back on. Without music, what would they have on Sunday morning besides a thirty minute sermon? Catholics have the freedom, perhaps, to ignore it?
ReplyDeleteI listen to Tabernacle Baptist Radio and hear gospel quartets all the time, mixed in with some mighty fine preaching by godly, KJV-only pastors.
ReplyDeleteI was raised in an independent Pentecostal church where we sang out of the old Songs We Sing and Best-Loved Songs and Hymns (the "brownback" and "redback" respectively). Our area is full of traveling quartets constantly criss-crossing it, and we always had singings with these quartets and "fifth Sunday" singings with just the congregation.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I am from a town in Arkansas which was once the home of a large Gospel publishing company which turned out "I'll Fly Away," "Victory in Jesus," and "Turn Your Radio On." Every year we have a Gospel "Songfest" here. I would love for the Church to have such a tradition of popular singing.
Would love to hear them sing "Gimme' That Old Time Religion" with verses like "It was good for the Nicene Council and it's good enough for me." or "It was good for Athanasius, he defined the Trinity".
ReplyDeleteDamascus is a quartet made up of young Catholic men from Albany. Their available videos are typical Southern Gospel fare, but they have pics of them performing at Catholic parishes. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Damascus/223457411124
ReplyDeleteL'Angelus does Cajun music, and have a southern sound. They'll be performing at World Youth Day.
Not a quartet, but Fr. Edward Richard is a banjo playin' priest who does bluegrass
ReplyDeletehttp://www.holymountainbluegrass.com/
Sorry Fr D.... I grew up in SC not too far from BJU and I heard the gospel stuff all my growing up years. It is inseparably immeshed with a manipulative, sentamental approach to faith that leaves me feeling a bit sick at the stomach. I know that music is like noses and toes – we all have them, but they are not alike. So I try to be tolerant when I'm with gospel music folk, but it's not for me. Give me Wesley sung by a good English choir with a pipe organ!
ReplyDeleteDavid - I too would like to leave that music behind, but it pops into my mind at some of the oddest moments, and I fear that in my old age, I will be found sitting in my chair in the nursing home singing,
ReplyDelete"I Dreamed of the Great Judgment Morning" or some such thing. I hope I'm holding my Rosary when they find me. :)Rosemary
I'm new to the Church since Easter Vigil this year, coming from a Wesleyan Holiness background. I have always sung alto in church, as many hymns are pitched too high for my voice. I would love some intstruction about how to sing at Mass-- what parts are designed to be sung in unison? Is it ever acceptable to sing alto with any of the sung parts of the mass? Or the hymn? I haven't asked at my parish because, as you observed, most folks really aren't that into singing at all.
ReplyDeleteI like that you like both this kind of stuff and the Chant.
ReplyDeleteI'm a cradle Catholic, and really the best resource I've found for the psalms is to go to a Protestant hymn site and look up the Scripture references.
I then line up the song lyrics with the KJV, and it is simply amazing how well many of these songs rhyme and fit the meter and still have a "high fidelity" to the KJV.
I pick out the tune that I like and we go for it.
I don't really have that option with the Catholic resources on my shelves.