Finally tonight: certain songs have a way of moving our spirit. In the “Weekend Journal,” CBS’s Barry Petersen shows how gospel music, with roots among America’s enslaved, is ministering to the hearts of people in Paris.
Gospel and jazz singer Linda Lee Hopkins gathered friends to sing gospel. “Ooh — and I know where you go, love grows,” she sang. Music that works, even if many in the audience don’t speak English. “They don’t get the words, but they get the spirit that comes — that you as a performer project to them.”
“For more than 30 years singing in Paris, she has the spirit,” Petersen says. The popularity of gospel in Paris really started with the Golden Gate Quartet, whose long-running show in 1958 launched gospel and made them icons in France. Parisians now line up when gospel choirs perform.
Gospel Dream was warming up for a concert — one of several choirs that perform in Paris. Audrey Mamor sees gospel as a way to reach people. “Jesus, lamb of God,” the choir sang. Singing to an audience that may not understand the words raises the question: how do they get the message? “The spirit of God is beyond the borders of language,” Mamor says. “They feel something. They feel the joy. They feel the love.”
As the concert reverberated in the church, the French audience indeed found the joy in this most American of music. Hallelujah. Barry Petersen, CBS News, Paris.