News & Updates — gospel

Happy birthday to the great Nina Simone!! Pianist, singer, anti-war and civil rights activist, an inspiration to generations. This great talent from North Carolina captivated everyone that came in her path or heard her music. A gifted arranger, she could take any tune, or combination of tunes, and turn them into epic statements. Her music melded gospel, jazz, classical, blues and pop, with the clear purpose of many politicized folk artists of her day. Born Eunice Waymon, she aspired to be a pioneering black concert pianist and only reluctantly became a jazz singer after racist rejection from a prestigious school....

Blind Willie Johnson, the gospel blues singer/guitarist from Texas was responsible for one of the single most haunting songs in the American song canon, "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" (a song which has been sent into outer space). Allegedly blinded by his stepmother in an act of revenge against his father, Johnson's hard life included living in the streets and in the ruins of his burned-down home. While ill, he was refused admittance at a hospital due to being black and blind, dying with no treatment. Here is that deeply stirring song as we celebrate his birthday...