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Feb. 9, 2007
Spirit to the people
"Kosher gospel" singer raises souls high.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
He's a Hebrew school teacher who's also the music director at a
Baptist church – but Joshua Nelson sees no contradiction in
mixing traditions.
"Judaism doesn't preach that we're the right religion,"
said Nelson, on the phone from his New Jersey home. "We preach
that
there are highways to heaven and there are lots of spiritual avenues
to get there. So it's OK for a Jew to embrace a Muslim or a Christian,
and have a great time in a synagogue or a concert hall with spiritual
music."
The self-described "kosher gospel" singer explained in
an interview that the roots of gospel predate any connection between
the music and Christianity. In fact, he said, the sound was simply
reflective of slaves working in the fields in the American South
who – not sharing a common language – began "moaning
and groaning" and singing to each other as a means of communication.
"They had not yet been introduced to Christianity," Nelson,
who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, pointed out. "So technically,
the sound in gospel music doesn't have anything to do with Christianity
or Jesus. It's basically an ethnic thing. So all I did was the same
thing, by taking these moans and groans and chants and these work
songs, and I married them to liturgy and Hebrew spirituals."
It turns out to be a joyful combination. On "Hineh Ma Tov,"
for instance, Nelson channels Louis Armstrong; "Lo Yisa Goy"
features Stevie Wonder-style organ swirls and "Avot" is
performed to the tune of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song."
He said he first came up with this idea during a trip to Israel.
"I was at the Great Synagogue [and] I heard the synagogue choir
sing," he recalled. "It was all men, all in harmony –
it sounded glorious. It sounded exactly like the voices in [legendary
gospel singer] Mahalia Jackson's albums. Now, back in those days,
Mahalia was the only black gospel singer on the Columbia record
label, so they utilized jazz musicians and professional choir voices
very similar to the ones in the synagogue that day and, because
I'm Jewish, well, the average person wouldn't have made the connection
but I did, because I knew exactly what they were singing in Hebrew,
and I said, 'that sounds like kosher gospel music!' "
Just as gefilte fish is not the only Jewish food in the world, he
said, klezmer is not the only Jewish music. "When you go to
Israel," said Nelson, "you actually can see all the cultures
– each ethnicity had their own culture. But you don't see that
here because the majority of the people here are non-Israeli and
you don't know unless you actually sit down with someone. I think
every group of Jews that comes from a different country, they take
the food of that country and they just make it kosher. And the same
thing about music. Jewish music has no boundaries; it has no limits.
The only thing that makes it Jewish is its content ... it can encompass
anything, as long as the lyrics are kosher, which means that it's
Jewish: about Jewish life, Jewish foods, Jewish holidays, or the
liturgy."
Nelson has since performed with the likes of Cab Calloway, Dizzie
Gillespie, Aretha Franklin and the Klezmatics – and dubbed
a "next big thing" by no less of a starmaker than Oprah
Winfrey. He said the biggest thrill was getting a call from celebrated
music promoter Jerry Wexler, the man who helped drive the careers
of both Franklin and Ray Charles.
"He called me out of the blue one day," Nelson recounted,
"he says, 'Man, I produced Aretha.' He says, 'I don't know
where you're going with your career, but you got it.' And when he
said those words, I got cold chills all over my body because the
guy has been everywhere a person could possibly be in the producing
area of music."
Nelson has been on hiatus from his Hebrew school duties since he
went on tour last September, hopping from the Jewish Music Awards
in New York to playing the town square in Warsaw; from a synagogue
show in Westport, Conn., to a performance with his band, the Kosher
Gospel Singers, in Munich. Like many Jews before him, he spent January
touring Florida.
He'll be in Vancouver Feb. 24 to perform at the Chan Centre as part
of this year's Chutzpah! Festival. He promises a lively show. "We're
always high-energetic," he said. "I walk around and sing,
jump on the organ, the piano ... we really have a good time."
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