Say Amen Somebody: Music From the Film

Product Description

The legendary documentary about the pioneers of modern gospel music, starring Willie Mae Ford Smith, Thomas A. Dorsey, The Barrett Sisters and The O’Neal Twins. Soundtrack includes Highway To Heaven, Singing In My Soul, When I’ve Done My Best, Jesus Dropped The Charges, Canaan, I’ll Never Turn Back , and 10 more.

Review

One needn’t have a particular interest in gospel music to appreciate “Say Amen, Somebody,” the most glorious film ever made about African American gospel. The widely acclaimed documentary focuses on two of the genre’s pioneers: Thomas A. Dorsey, a prominent blues pianist in the 1920s who quit show business at decade’s end to devote himself to composing such now-standard gospel songs as “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” and “Peace in the Valley”; and vocalist Willie Mae Ford Smith, who helped spread Dorsey’s songs at churches throughout the country, though many pastors turned her away, saying this new gospel music sounded too much like the blues. Dorsey was 81 and Smith 78 when director George T. Nierenberg filmed them in 1980. Both used walkers and were well past their vocal prime. “I may have cracks in my voice wider than the banks of the Mississippi River, but ol’ Mississippi keeps on flowing,” Smith says at one point. The Barrett Sisters, the O’Neal Twins and other younger singers give more polished performances, but none matches the dignity and charisma that Dorsey and Smith project in scenes filmed in their homes and in front of church congregations. The editing is consistently inventive, particularly when shots move away from faces to clasped or clapping hands and to still or tapping feet, and the sound recording also is exceptional. Rykodisc’s 25th anniversary DVD edition comes in a hymnal-style package that includes a 15-song CD and notes by gospel music authority Anthony Heilbut.
— Lee Hildebrand — San Francisco Chronicle, March 11, 2007