Minneapolis spokesman., 1962-01-19

/
will be presented Maurice White
over radio station KEVE (1440 on
your diaD with yours truly as the
disk jockey. The name Of the pro-
gram will be THE Sunday Night
Gospel Concert" and will feature
gospel and spiritual recordings ex-
clusively.
I am very excited about this op-
portunity to be on radio hosting
program which features gospel
and spiritual records for a number
of reasons.
First of all, as one who some
day hopes to live entirely on his
writings, being on radio gives one
greater audience to make his
wares known.
However, the primary source of
excitement comes from the pros
pect of being associated with a
form of music which was originat-
ell by my own people and which is
steadily gaining such world wide
acceptance as gospel and spiritual
music are gaining today.
Actually, few minority groups
have ever enjoyed the lot which
has befallen the Negro in America.
No group has had such a profound
influence upon a nations culture
as Negroes have upon music in
America. Trace the history of ev-
cry popular musical idiom in the
United States and it will eventual
ly lead back to style originating
with the Negro.
Margaret Just Butcher, writing
in The Negro In American Culture,
says, 1T fell to the lot Of the Ne
gro, whom slavery domesticated, to
furnish our (America's) most orig
inal and influential folk music and
to lay the foundations for native
American music. Certain strains
of Irish and Old English folk mu-
sic have fingered in our mountain
country and the backwoods, and
are still important as musical
sources; but the Negroes music
has gradually dominated the field"
Today, gospels and spirituals are
more popular than ever. The above
quotation from The Negro In
American Culture contains a clue
as to why they are. That is, as
music originated by the American
Negro, gospels and spirituals are
looked upon nowadays as folk mu-
sic. And to quote Time Magazine,
'"The us. is smack in the middle
of folk music boom ;. :"
Again, quoting from The Negro
In American Culture, Negro folk
music was produced without
formal musical training or inten-
ton by the greatest and most
fundamental of all musical forces
- emotional creation. In the Ne
gro's case this creative force was
deep suffering and the spiritual
compensation of intense religious
emotion and ecstasy. This rich vein
of emotional expression has yielded
not only the spiritual but also
the most characteristic Negro mu-
sical idiom. 1t is an idiom sad but
not somber, tragic but ecstatic, in
tense but buoyant." |
It is in this vein - that Of folk |
music - which the new broadcast |
will be presented. The radio sta
ton (KEVE, 1440 on your dali |
is in the process Of amassing the
greatest collection Of gospel and
spiritual recordings in the upper
midwest with such personalities
and groups as Mahalia Jackson,
Harry Belafonte, The Davis Sis
ters, The Five Blind Boys and
many many others.
From another standpoint, this
new program is just the thing for
the business man who has longed
for a radio program which will
reach a particular segment Of the
Twin Cities population. Here is his
opportunity to advertise on radio,
at very modest rates, and be GER
tain of hitting the audience at
which he is aiming. Although most
of the broadcast time has already
been purchased by The Star Re-
cord Shop in st. Paul and the
Unique Cleaners in Minneapolis, I
think there are still a couple of