Like Legend, Adams knew if Gates was involved in the project, it would be an accurate, respectful history.
“So many times in movies and short films, you have the church choir or gospel section where it is almost farcical or lampooned,” she says. “But I knew this would be a project that would show the elegance, the grace, and the true story of not just gospel music, but also the church.”
When Gates was searching for a title for the documentary he and fellow producer Stacey L. Holman were torn between “This Is Our Story, This is Our Song,” from “Blessed Assurance,” and “How I Got Over.”
“Finally, I emailed Oprah,” Gates says. “I said, ‘Stacey and I are arguing about this, what do you think?’ One morning, I woke up and turned on my cellphone and there was a message and it was Oprah. It was, ‘This is our story, this is our song.’ And that was it.”
The irony? “Blessed Assurance” was written by a blind white woman, Fanny Crosby. It was accessioned by Black churches and it became one of their most frequently sung songs. “Literary critics would call it, ‘intertextuality,’ but (that’s a sign of) borrowing, signifying, riffing, taking a text and making it Black. That’s what I like,” Gates says.
“The Black Church” airs Feb. 16 and 17 on PBS.
Credit: Source link