Amazing Grace: Obama Hits a Blue Note in Charleston

[cbayer]

http://religiondispatches.org/amazing-grace-obama-hits-a-blue-note-in-charleston/

BY PETER MANSEAU JULY 4, 2015




If Sunday morning at 11 o’clock is Christian America’s most segregated hour, then “Amazing Grace” might be its most segregated song.

To be sure, it is one of very few pieces of music instantly recognized all over the United States, by people of all races and even of different faiths. Sing the first few words in a public place and you can be sure someone around you will join in. You may even find youself leading a spontaneous choir. The same might be said only of the “Star Spangled Banner.” No other hymn will ever be the spiritual national anthem that “Amazing Grace” has become.

All of which makes it particularly striking to consider that “Amazing Grace” is not one song, but many. More than most pieces of music, its meaning is dependent upon the context in which it is sung or heard.

The American “Amazing Grace” spectrum runs from the painfully stilted (for example, when sung by Tom Netheron of the Lawrence Welk’s “Musical Family” ) to the effortlessly soulful (as in the hands of Reverend Al Green.) The difference between these approaches is ripe material for parody. “When white people sing Amazing Grace,” the comedian Rick Smiley riffs in astonishment, “you can understand the words. They sing every single syllable!”

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[3catwoman3]

1. The entire eulogy was...

...electrifying.