A little shell-shocked from his initial refusal to talk during our earlier phone conversation, I left my tape recorder in the car, but it didn't matter. The information was invalidated by several contradictions, which may have been intentional, to throw off the nosy stranger. When I asked him how much he taught Cooke, he refuted decades of liner notes and gospel anthologies by saying Cooke already had his own style before joining the Soul Stirrers. I got the feeling that Harris had decided to not give me any useful quotes and instead showed me fan mail from as far away as Japan and described pictures on his wall. Or maybe he had finally made peace with his past.
Family photos dominate one wall.
Facing it is a wall containing Soul Stirrers memorabilia, including a newspaper article announcing the group's 1989 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When I asked him with whom I should speak in Trinity about the Soul Stirrers, he said, I'm the only one who knows the real story. Maybe all the loose ends of life come together in the sweet by and by, as said by that song that moved me toward fanaticism eight years ago. The truth, whatever it is in this tale of fuzzy memories and furry pride, was buried with Rebert H. Harris. All rights reserved.