Ft. Greene Park Gospel Blow Out

On Tuesday September 14 at 6:30 pm Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens will be performing in Fort Green Park, Brooklyn. Now I love Ms. Shelton, and I've blogged about her for American Legacy, but the reason I'm back to talk about her is that I love my friend John Stuart even more. Known to many as DJ Johnny Stuart, he will be knocking out some very deep, very rare gospel grooves in between the sets of Ms. Shelton and the brilliant, strange, and hilarious Reggie Watts. John won't be playing any ordinary stuff, either—we are talking pre-1970s Moving Star Hall Singers kind of spirituals and the like.

Shelton has been singing gospel and soul in the deepest sense of the word since she was a young girl attending her parent’s church in Midway, Alabama, (which is pretty close to where my father grew up, we both realized) and at a radio studio (one of several) that her father built in Tuskegee. Inspired by Sam Cooke, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama (“the spiritual tone they had in their voice”) she left Alabama in 1958 and in the 1960s crossed into the secular world, playing gigs in Florida, then at a club called the Night Cap on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, where she eventually moved. She was working as the house singer when she met organist Cliff Driver, her musical director, and producer, but more importantly her mentor and friend. “You can’t get me without my organist. He got me where I am. He’s my teacher. He knows about the music business,” says Shelton.

Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens

What’s so compelling about her singing is that place of comfort I immediately go to when I hear her, back to those evenings when my dad would drop a Sam Cooke or Ray Charles album on the stereo turntable, and those Sunday mornings my mom would play Mahalia Jackson. It’s that kind of music, pure Shelton, the words all good news, the music R&B. About the crossing over and mixing of the two genres, Shelton says that singing gospel the way she does helps to attract new listeners: “My heart is full of love for people in love with kinds of music. One style grows out of the other. I don’t look at something as a set pattern. I like to be flexible. If I have sweet potato pie I can have apple pie, too. You go one route, you get stuck. I asked God to expand my territory. People didn’t know that old time gospel was still around. He wants me to get out in the world to shine a light through me.”

John and I both had the great good luck of seeing Ms. Shelton live last year at Joe’s Pub in New York City, and she rolled through a set of roughly 15 songs (maybe more) without breaking a sweat. It was a pleasure to watch Shelton, her musical partner Cliff Driver, her back-up band, and the Gospel Queens shine on the crowd.

So hit Fort Greene Park for what promises to be a wonderful show!

P.S.
If you live in or around New York City, she performs every Friday night at the Fat Cat. Admission is only three dollars! For more information visit www.fatcatmusic.org. For upcoming performance and information visit here .