It is not often that I tear up over the evocative beauty of a song. But it happened Friday at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Minneapolis.
That's where noted singers Jearlyn Steele and Tonia Hughes are being joined by promising teenager Kennadi Hurst to channel the late gospel music queen Mahalia Jackson.
In a deeply moving performance, the singing trio summons the faith, grace and soul-rousing spirit of a vocalist who sang at the 1963 March on Washington and at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.
The show, "Come on Children, Let's Sing," is essentially a musical concert biography with a very brief weekend run. It is staged simply by Lou Bellamy, founder of copresenter Penumbra Theatre Company.
At the pulpit, eloquent narrator Jennifer Whitlock reads clever biographical nuggets crafted by playwright Dominic Taylor. Then one of the three singers, each representing a phase of Jackson's life, delivers a number.
She was born in New Orleans in 1911, growing up in the house of her once-enslaved grandfather. She later settled in Chicago, where she teamed up with famed gospel composer Thomas A. Dorsey. Schooled in the church, she became famous for her powerful contralto.
To do her justice requires not just a canned imitation of her style, but an outpouring of one's own soul. The women do so with stirring grace at Fellowship, accompanied by an instrumental quartet led by nimble, fiery-fingered pianist Sanford Moore.
The singers give their all on such numbers as "Elijah's Rock," "Move on Up a Little Higher" and "Didn't It Rain." (They are backed up by Yolande Bruce, Deborah Finney and David Hurst, Kennadi's father.)
