Sonic Exploration: The Profound Impact of Soul Music

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and even if you are in the midnight hour somewhere listening to this, welcome to the more of God the role less traveled. I am joined today with my sister, my partner in crime on the podcast Ones and Two's, miss Regina D Jemison Say hello, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. And today, in this episode at least this episode, if not more than one episode we are going to talk about music, and not just any music. We're gonna talk about soul music. Now I wanna put forth a definition, because if we just say soul music, there might be some folks who might get turned off because they might think, hey, well, they're talking about devil music, or I like rock and roll, or I like country or this kind of genre or that kind of genre. But I'm gonna submit to you that our definition of soul music in general is music that speaks to your soul, and so you don't have to have a specific kind of or amount of melanin or pigmentation to engage in this conversation. And so throughout this episode, we're gonna kind of go back through some memory lane. We're gonna talk about maybe some of our favorite hymns, meditation, gospel, whatever comes to mind that really just feed the soul. And so I know I have shared this probably not on this podcast, but I know that I've shared this in social media before. I mean, I know I've shared this with Regina and we've had a laugh and maybe mixed with tears, because it evokes some memories. One of my favorite memories is on Saturday mornings growing up in my home with my mom and Saturday morning she would let me watch Saturday morning cartoons and get my feel of watching the super friends and Scooby-Doo and the Flintstones and Bugs Bunny and all of those guys. But at 12 o'clock, after Fat Albert was over, after I got numb watching that, and right as I thought she was still in the bed resting and I thought, man, I'm gonna get to watch Soul Train. And as the Soul Train theme was coming on, click, click, and next up was Mahalia Jackson and we listened to gospel music until the house was clean on Saturday afternoon. And that happened every Saturday without fail. It didn't matter if I had company over, didn't matter if relatives was over, that's just what it was going to be on Saturday. We was going to listen to some of God's music. We wore out Mahalia Jackson, we wore out the Amazing Grace album. I can't tell you how many times we listened to the great late Aretha Franklin singing gospel music. We listened to Reverend James Cleveland, all of them and so many more. There's just some songs and it doesn't really matter, but there are some songs that just hit you in a certain way and take you and transport you back to another time or another place or a place that maybe you ought to be at right now. It's still my go-to. There are still times, for example now I just talked about a Saturday but on Sunday, sunday after church, if we weren't bringing home a plate from the sister auxiliary chicken dinner sale, mom would be in the kitchen frying something and there would be some music going on. What I find myself doing is when I'm in the kitchen cooking, I have to have that same music going on. When I'm cleaning, I need to have the same music going on. Not only in those moments, but when I find myself in a place where I'm off-center, where I need to ground myself, where I need to feel the presence in this case, of God, I will put on amazing grace. Matter of fact, I was listening to it a couple of weeks ago, the whole album, I think I put it on repeat. It just moves you, it moves your soul if you let it to a place where you can start to hear from God. Jean, what you got.

Yeah, that's just great, Great, great great. I have a playlist called Center Me and it's just got a few songs on it. It's one of the things that, and some of the songs on this playlist for me, just put me back where I need to be Now, ironically, or maybe surprisingly, or maybe not remember, 525,600 minutes from rent. I love that song and that song really puts me in the space of being reminded of how precious life is and that we have these minutes in a year, right, and there's hundreds of thousands of them. How do we use them? How do we get in touch with them? How do we appreciate time? And so rent 500, 25,600 minutes, and there's a few versions out there. And then there's the reprise and the this and the that, the different cuts, because it's based on that Broadway play. That is just. That's a pretty special one for me and let me tell you, you can do anything, Diane Reeves. Let's just be clear Anything, Diane Reeves. If you've never seen Diane Reeves live in concert, you are missing an experience of a lifetime, because that woman has the kind of range that many people hope to and she just has an extraordinary gift in her voice. So you can play anything, Diane Reeves, but one of my favorite songs of hers is called Old Souls and it just it talks about the presence of the ancestors and the spirits being with you and really guiding you all the time, and I really believe that to be true and live that in my heart. And so you know because we're always talking about our parents who have been gone, you know our moms particular, because their dad is still with you. But our moms in particular that have been gone on the glory for some time, that you know they're always around, they're always present, they're always. Their love is around, their spirit is around, their lessons in our heart are still present. And so Old Souls is just one of those songs that is like so, so, so precious to me. And then you know like you can play anything on A Little Supreme by John Coltrane. I mean, you know like there is no bad note on A Little Supreme by John Coltrane. What's the other one that just came to mind? I could see the album clear as they mouse Davis, what is it? It's got blue in the title. That album, I know, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, you can, though. Those kinds of that touch you in a deep place. That return, return me to family memories or return me to great times or return me to stillness, right. That kind of presence of the note, Like I love that. You say it transports you, like that, that kind of music transports me to somewhere right and, depending on the mood, depending on what's happening, depending on when I'm listening to it, but it is unequivocally definitely a transporting of some where like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. So those are some of the, some of my favorites. What any of that strike you or what else you got that?

Well, I was going going to just before I answer for answer that you know we were talking before the episode about copyrights and folks. You know not to go, even though we are gifted with a in house council in the form of Regina. We're not allowed to actually play any songs, or even snippets. But what you may not know is that we do have a songbird and it's not me on the podcast in the form of one, miss Regina D Jemisin. So when she sings, trust me, you will not hear me sing whatever. It's just not going to be in comparison. So that's my gift to you, for not for all of you, so that your ears will not bleed, but all right, so that was just a public service announcement. I just want to make that clear, since you did sing just a little bit, you know, but in terms of songs that have have moved me in my life, man, there are so, so many throughout the years. I remember the first non gospel song that I ever owned was from Coolin' Again and I'm trying to remember the name of it. Hold on, I'll look it up. But I hit my mom by the four me on cassette tape and for those of you who are younger, think VCR tape is very, very, very smaller than that to give you an idea. But it was my very first my get down on it. That was it In 1981, that was my first. The first piece of music that I owned was Get Down On it. Oh, that's good. Not the first song, you know, the first one that I heard, but the first one that she actually used some of her money that didn't come off the radio that I owned. That I owned was Coolin' Again. And then I also remember. I also remember Marvin Gaye.

Marvin Gaye, and, and and Marvin and Tammy, so music yes.

They sang and they sang, and it really didn't matter what they sang, because everything they sang sounded good, right, and, and you know just the whole Motah era, and and and and Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. I was trying to think about last night, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we could go on and on. And then, of course, you know, we got into the hip hop era and I remember public enemy came out and it just, you know, you know you and I were there at the same time and it just spoke to us and what we were going through on campus At that particular moment in time, yeah, yeah, just special moments and music. Just if you could take the take all of the history of humanity, especially since the advent of musical recordings, you could probably create a soundtrack to humanity. That's good.

Yeah.

Which would be interesting. You know the good, the bad and the ugly, yeah, yeah, yeah, and and. And you know songs from like Stevie Wonder. I remember there was a period in my life where I just wore me and Steve were like brothers, you know you can't talk about great music and not talk about Stevie Wonder and songs Not a season that Stevie did not cover, right? If you was in love, stevie has some music for you. If you were just I love, stevie has some music for you. If you want to fall in love, stevie got you. If you want to celebrate love, stevie got you, stevie just had he. Mr Wonder is a wonder, a definitely a musical virtuoso, and he's so versed in not just, not not just one kind of music, it's just. If you look at his credits and the things that he's contributed to you would you know you could be easily older at the breadth and the enormity of his, of his contribution to music and all genres.

Yeah, definitely, definitely, I think. And and then you have. I think we would be remiss of talking about music if we didn't mention Prince or Michael Jackson, particularly when you talk about songs that mark yeah occasions or encapsulate experiences of life. I think you definitely would include them in Again, when you talk about, like Stevie Wonder, artists that have touched many other artists or many other areas of music or entertainment, or have many wide ranging credits in having either helped grow up other artists or help other artists in their skills and or writing for other artists, I think that you would definitely be remiss in not mentioning the two of them. I think also that there's something to be said for when you think about music in the experience of life and the more of God that, when you talk about music, I think, communicates for us in a way when we may not have words for it, right, whether it's the tones or the rhythms or the instruments, or somebody else's voice or somebody else's lyrics, soul music has a way of communicating and even releasing emotion and feeling in a way that can only be captured by that media, and I think that's why, when you talk about music and rhythms and sounds, that's why they've been so important to the history of worship and faith experiences. That certainly in our Christian faith and in the history of the Black church, absolutely no doubt. But even across other faith experiences, everyone has a sound or an instrument or an experience of music that is part of their faith tradition or part of their faith expression, because there's something about the compilation of instruments or sounds or voices or drums or things that return us to and connect us to God and give expression to our life. That I think is important, that I think is important and I think can even be healing in some situations or really those moments that mark whether it's at a wedding or at a at the passing of someone. I can't tell you how many times I've served as a chaplain and what's been important in those moments of actual passing for people or when the grief is fresh and it's just happened, music is often very important. In those moments, like there's favorite songs or people talk about, people lose their memory, they lose the ability to communicate in some ways but I've heard the stories time and time again but they remember the songs to those hymns, they remember the melody to certain songs that have been important to them in their personal history, and so I think you know that we need to keep connected and keep finding the Saturday morning occasions or maybe it's when you're just cutting your grass with your earphones on, or maybe it's at the family gathering or friend gathering but to keep marking those occasions with extraordinary music.

Yeah, I remember being a youth, I know, at church sitting in the back cutting up and during the praise and worship, part of the service, the, you know, the, the, the deacons, the old deacons that look like giants. They would, they would start, just a hum.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, church mothers would bring in some words and it didn't matter what the, him, him, what we was going to sing was, but it would. It would the, the, the, the deacons would bring in the baseline, church mothers would bring in the hymns and eventually the, the, the, the tenor of and the power of the song would, would reverberate to the back of the church and hit us as kids and we would all of a sudden look up and see people rejoicing, Whereas just a few minutes earlier it was completely quiet. That is really the power of music. There's a, there's a reason why, you know, music is so instrumental in the Bible. The Bible records that, that that Lucifer himself was an instrument, right, his, his body was, was recorded as, as being an instrument, because there was an importance of, of music in the, in, in the, in the, in the throne room of God, in that, in the, in the heavenly host. There there's an importance that music plays, that it is able to convey the thing that word sometimes, as Gina said, cannot convey. It's the reason why, one of the reasons why you may not be able to write a love letter, but you can create a mixtape, right, and I know for some people, maybe you all have never done that, let me, let me, let me bring it up to the modern age. A playlist, right, that's what it is called. Now you're going to send somebody a playlist, and, and, and you, you weave this narrative through this playlist, through this mixtape, through these hymns, through these songs, about what it is you're feeling, or what it is you want to feel, or what it is that you're what you're hearing, and so music becomes, it can become the thing. That's what is that saying? Music soothes the savage beast, right, and we are the savage beast. By the way, I'm not trying to call anybody an animal, but there's sometimes where we, we were, we're acting very much like the humans that we are and I don't mean that in a good way All the time. And so music helps, can help us, you know, calm ourselves, center ourselves, bring us back to a place where we can remember the things worth remembering and forget the things that are worth forgetting. So music does that for us.

Yeah, yeah, I want to. This is funny, so why not, let's take us there. So I ran across a paper that Doug and I wrote in a you always got to bring that up. That Doug and I wrote many decades ago at the University of Michigan yeah, we show in our age there. So we wrote this December 7th 1989, and it was a paper about music and audio visual perception of the images of black Americans on the screen. And I just want to pull a quote out of there. Music displays the perceptions of our people and the interpretations of the way we function in American society. This is the depth of black music. It can be used as a tool to trace the history of black people in America and beyond. And just those two sentences. I say that because I think that that's the heart of what we're talking about. That music. It tells a story, it displays our perceptions, it tells of our culture, it is how we interpret life and society, and so that it helps to tell our story even beyond when we're here. And so I think that's a. We will likely have another episode about music, so stay tuned. But consider your favorite artists, consider your favorite tones, your favorite genres, consider your perceptions, interpretations of life, and get in touch with your musical side, your soul music side, so that you can really keep connecting to God in new and different ways, whether it be a hymn or a Neil Soul song or a rock and roll song, whatever it is. Let God speak to you through the tones and sounds of the world, because there's lots of soul music to be heard. Go on and pray. I thought of hearing that.

Holy God, we thank you for the gift of music, Father. We thank you for the power that you've put into music, that it is able to heal us, able to convict us, able to excite us, able to encourage us, Father, and able us to love more, to love better, love stronger, God, and able us to laugh when we need to laugh, cry when we need to cry, heal, Father, when we need to heal. Father. We are so thankful for this gift that you've given us, God. Let us continue to be able to explore it and enjoy it and be used by it in the way that you intended it to be used, Father. Father, we ask you to protect us and guide us until we are able to come back together again. These things we ask in your name, Thank God, Amen.