Doo Wop and Church Music (Part 1)

You've seen them on television, those three-hour marathon shows on the Public Broadcasting station during the annual pledge week that reunite and bring back some of the great pop music groups and artists of previous decades. There have been shows on doo wop, 50's and early 60's rock & roll, Motown, folk music, and maybe others. When I see one listed in the newspaper TV listing, I try to make time to watch it or record it to watch later. This was a big part of the formative music of my youth, having been born one of the early post-war Baby Boomers.

I've been thinking about why these PBS shows are so popular, and have come up with the following reasons.

1. You can listen to this music and simply enjoy it for what it is. Much of it has singable and memorable melodies, pleasant harmonies, a lack of the harsh dissonance that marks much of the music that came later, understandable lyrics that one can relate to, and more.
2. Hearing this music today causes you to remember how you felt when you first heard it 20, 30, and 40 years ago. It brings back feelings of youth, young love, optimism, expectancy, and the sense that your entire adult life and what it offers lies ahead of you.
3. It causes you to remember the events and activities of your life — good and bad: first dates, slumber parties, driving around town with friends, school dances, stopping at the soda shop on the way home from school, hours alone in your room when your parents grounded you, watching American Bandstand with friends after school. There is also music that one might associate with things like racial strife, Vietnam War protests, and drugs, but I believe this comes from a later time than the music on these PBS shows.
4. It brings back memories of the people with whom you shared this music: your best friends and chums, boy- and girlfriends, dates, classmates, neighbors, siblings.
5. The years that have passed have filtered our memories so that our recollections and surfaced emotions are selective, usually for the good. We tend to bury or forget the bad times, so hearing the music brings up more good than bad remembrances.
6. The re-experiencing of this music today is both an individual and a communal phenomenon. If you watch the people in the audience of these PBS shows, it's clear that sometimes they are lost in a deeply private moment, eyes closed, perhaps a tear falling on the cheek, maybe a smile on the face, often with a hand touching their face. But the music also can result in a powerfully corporate experience, complete with unison swaying, hands clapping in rhythm, holding hands or intertwining arms, dancing in the aisles, exchanging smiles and knowing glances with nearby total strangers, and, of course, singing along. The audience may consist of 5,000 total strangers, but to watch them all immersed in the moment of "Soldier Boy," "The Duke of Earl," "Venus," "The Chapel of Love," or "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling" is to witness the power of music to bring them together as a family.

PBS doesn't put these shows on just to entertain us. They put them on to make money. They do this in two ways. One way is by appealing to us to join the list of PBS supporters, that elite group of people who recognize the benefit of bringing this kind of programming to television. Without our dollars, there will be no such programming. The other way they make money is by offering the various premiums as "gifts" to those who join — videos, CDs, DVDs, cassettes — and combinations for different levels of giving. In effect they are selling the recordings and people are paying much higher prices than they would in their local retail store. The money-making efforts are evidently successful because the shows are re-run and new ones developed. It's also interesting to take note that you only see this kind of show on PBS during the fundraising or membership drives. They've discovered that here is a way to move people through the emotional experience of music to part with their money. You won't see this kind of show as a regular part of PBS programming.

I'm wondering about the difference between the use of music in these PBS specials and the use of music by church musicians in worship, and I'm wondering about the difference between the experience of the music by the people in both settings. I will end with these questions and invite your responses:

1. How is the use of music by PBS and by church musicians the same?
2. How is the use of music by PBS and by church musicians different?
3. How is the experience of music in the PBS audience and in the worshiping congregation the same?
4. How is the experience of music in the PBS audience and in the worshiping congregation different?