Precious Memories... (Black Music Month)

...How They Linger.

I don't think I'll ever know a song to be sung so slow again in my lifetime. Not a fan of how it is sung. Remember that sentence toward the end of this post.

I have learned I am a lady of a certain, now. So, let your young aunty take you to a time right before TGIF was a television thing on Friday nights. Dallas & Knox Landing were in summer reruns, so I was being educated to play Solitare, Old Maid, & Concentration by my grandparents, Granny & PauPau (How dare you Grammarly, try to correct my grandfather's named to PayPal). 

It was nothing for the record player to be belting out jazz or gospel tunes that they loved. PauPau's favorite gospel singer was Reverend James Cleveland. He called him Jimmy like they were old buds & would shut down any homosexual gossip about him. He felt that had nothing to do with his "good singing" (That's where I get my similar mindset from). Often Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace album was played. It was a popular album containing hymns & songs the old Black Baptists liked to sing.

Well, I finally got to watch the making of that album on Hulu at the end of last year or the beginning of this one. The documentary, Amazing Grace was like a time machine for me. Back to when choirs sang & marched in to start their concerts. Back to a time when I still went to live album recordings and starting over was normal. And of course, back to that living room, I grew up in(Well, I'm actually sitting in it typing that sentence). It was a fun watch for me. Recognized the "Baptist fits", the non-Baptists like to call Baptist shouting. I even saw few people that look like they were extras in What's Happening & Black Girl. That show & that movie were filmed in 70s Los Angeles also. So, it's possible. And I know one of the directors was the choir director in the movie, The Blue Brothers. I know that hair. It was also fun to see Mick Jagger, Charlie Watt, and gospel great Clara Ward enjoy themselves. No, Jagger doesn't catch the Holy Spirit.

But the music sung by Aretha Franklin & the Southern California Community Choir was the real star for me. Yes, Franklin is great on the classic, Amazing Grace. But when I heard " We Are on Our Way" (If you've seen this film, did you hear those old school double claps? I miss those.), I remembered the last time I heard that song. The son, family, ministers, & deacons of the pastor I grew up under at "Foundation" church were processing in at his funeral, six years ago. "Ol' Landmark" was a song my niece danced to in the Ebony Nutcracker when she was younger. And I have seen many people be in happy tears when they think of a land where they will "Never Grow Old". Amazing Grace is a good documentary & album. Everyone should check them out. And stay until the end of the credits and hear all technical & small stuff you won't hear on the album.

Precious Memories is a very slow song. 

But it's lyrics do just what they are supposed to do in my heart...Linger!

As Always Talking to You in Adult Terms!