{"id":3492,"date":"2019-09-27T23:50:48","date_gmt":"2019-09-28T05:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/?p=3492"},"modified":"2025-08-07T15:53:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:53:17","slug":"acts-of-faith-electric-evangelists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/27\/acts-of-faith-electric-evangelists\/","title":{"rendered":"Acts of Faith: Electric Evangelists 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exactly a year ago my discussion with a comrade about music-compelled-by-struggle led to my first original post here, Attica: Coming Together<\/a>. Last Friday, talking with this same friend caused me to create a list of musics that employ the spoken word\u2014faith-based speech specifically. After jotting down a few titles I came across an extensive list<\/a> posted for Easter 2013 by one Mr. Fab, a Los Angeles-based deejay and musician. He helpfully includes the name of each orator, which indicates the popularity of two in particular, R. W. Schambach and Gene Scott. My list nearly ended with Praga Khan’s setting of the former in 1991, but Fab provides twenty more years of titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Friday conversation involved Brian Eno and David Byrne’s album My Life In the Bush of Ghosts<\/em> for which they used the voice of Kathryn “I Believe In Miracles” Kuhlman. While her estate wouldn’t approve licensing, a 1980 UK bootleg of the intended track and others circulated apparently before the official album was released in early 1981.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Bush of Ghosts<\/em> was completed in October of 1980 and Eno and Byrne must have scrambled to replace Kuhlman’s vocal: the substitute was an “unidentified exorcist” recorded the previous month in New York. Both these speakers are acts in their own right, with the exorcist commanding (below<\/a>), healer Kuhlman exploring (at least initially).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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