Prayer Meeting

Prayer Meeting -- not the Sunday morning service. The Wednesday night gathering, the one where the windows are open and anybody can testify. Aretha Franklin recorded 'Amazing Grace' live at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, January 1972, and made the best-selling gospel album of all time. The Winans brought R&B harmonies from Detroit and never apologized. Donnie McClurkin turned his own failure into a song every church adopted. The Blind Boys of Alabama, formed in 1939 at a school for the blind, covered Tom Waits and ended up on The Wire. Sam Cooke sang with the Soul Stirrers before he crossed over. Fred Hammond fused praise music with contemporary R&B. CeCe Winans sold more gospel records than any woman alive. The Staple Singers appear here before they marched with King. This is the service that happens when the formal program ends and the real work begins.