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Posted 09.19.06 Return of the Golden Chariots, and Other Gospel Groups Gospel music has returned to Marcus Garvey Park (The New York Times, August 7, 2006) By Janelle Nanos Gospel music has returned to Marcus Garvey Park. Groups including the Golden Chariots and the Fantastic Soulernaires could again be heard in the heart of Harlem yesterday, reviving a celebrated event that had been missing from the neighborhood in the past few years. From 1985 to 2002, the annual Gospel in Harlem USA festival, as it was then known, was synonymous with the first Sunday in August. Each year the event, whose hosts were two prominent local gospel disc jockeys, drew hundreds to the park for a spirited mix of gospel quartet, choir and solo performances. But when both hosts left their radio stations to pursue other ventures, the festival no longer was held. ''One year we were looking for it and it wasn't there,'' said Roxie Shamburger, president of the American Gospel Quartet Convention. ''It was just something that I loved and looked forward to. People really missed it when it went away. I got so many calls asking, 'When is the gospel coming back?''' Not only did Ms. Shamburger, 69, organize the return of the festival yesterday under the name Gospel in the Park, but she also performed in it with her quartet, the Rising Star Singers. A crowd of about 300 hand-clapping fans of gospel music came to the park to hear the performances of the two dozen groups, many of which had performed at the event in years past. ''I used to participate in this,'' said Frank Williams, 64, who said he had been an original member of the group the Mellotones, but who stayed in the audience yesterday. ''You would have goose bumps,'' he said. ''It was really exciting.'' Another spectator, Harvey Hills, 74, said he had for a time been the chauffeur for the Davis Sisters, a popular gospel quartet in the 1950's. ''All the great gospel singers came through the Apollo Theater and ended up here,'' he said. The original incarnation of the festival was organized by Bishop Sam Williams, 57, the former host of the ''Joy in the Morning'' program on WBLS, and Shumpert Watts, 70, a church elder widely known as Deacon Watts, who introduced gospel to WHCR and was host of ''The Road to Glory'' program for 21 years. Bishop Williams, who was a member of the Marcus Garvey Park Association, remembers the Harlem festival as an opportunity both to celebrate the gospel outdoors and to return the soul to a part of the neighborhood. Drug activity was rampant in the park during the 1980's, and its facilities had been gutted by robbery and neglect. But staging the original festival was not a simple endeavor, according to Mr. Watts. In those days, the bleachers were broken and the lights in the back of the park's amphitheater were not working, he recalled from his home in Louin, Miss., where he moved in 2002. ''We had the police come in and the Parks Department work with them, and they started fixing up the place.'' For 40 years, Mr. Watts promoted gospel acts in the New York area, like the Mellotones and Soul Converters, and the festival retains a special meaning for him. ''We took care of the artists and made people happy. I enjoyed every bit of it,'' he said. A thousand people arrived for the inaugural festival in 1985, but thanks to word of mouth, the numbers swelled to five times that in the following years. ''The first year that we did the event was a catalyst moment,'' Bishop Williams said. ''It helped the community to come alive and realize the importance of the venue. We made the park a place to come to.'' The festival also became a major campaign stop for the city's prospective political candidates, Bishop Williams said, who recalled that David N. Dinkins attended in the summer of 1989, in the midst of his successful mayoral race. ''The people went crazy,'' Bishop Williams said. ''It was like bedlam.'' Moreover, the event was -- and many like Ms. Shamburger hope will be again -- a chance to showcase local gospel talent and introduce the gospel message to the public. ''Some people won't go to hear a preacher preach but they'll come to hear the music,'' Ms. Shamburger said. ''We wanted to bring it out to the people that we feel really need it, and give something back to the community. Sometimes it's not as spiritual in the street as in the church, but as I always say, it's not all about the singing, it's about saving souls.'' |
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