Gospel

CHICAGO - Jessy Dixon, 73, a singer and songwriter who introduced his energetic style of gospel music to wider audiences by serving as pop singer Paul Simon's opening act, died Monday. Miriam Dixon said her brother died Monday morning at his Chicago home. She said he had been sick but declined to provide additional details. During a more-than-50-year career, Mr. Dixon wrote songs for several popular singers, including jazz and rhythm-and-blues singer Randy Crawford. He later wrote songs performed by Cher, Diana Ross, Natalie Cole, and Amy Grant.

CHICAGO - Jessy Dixon, a singer and songwriter who introduced his energetic style of gospel music to wider audiences by serving as pop-singer Paul Simon's opening act, died yesterday. He was 73. Miriam Dixon said her brother died at his Chicago home. She said he had been sick but declined to provide details. During a more than 50-year career, Dixon wrote songs for several performers, including jazz and rhythm and blues singer Randy Crawford. He later wrote songs performed by Cher, Diana Ross, Natalie Cole and Amy Grant.

WHEN Betty Spivey was 10, an elder at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church heard her "toying" with the piano keys. Obviously, Betty was not just toying, because Presiding Elder Arnold D. Nearn assigned her to play at the AME's South District Sunday School Convention that year. "Nervous and uncertain of her talent, she majestically played her first song, 'Where He May Lead Me,' which set the course for her service as a pianist and organist in God's church," her family said.

Delois Barrett Campbell, 85, a member of the award-winning Barrett Sisters trio who electrified audiences worldwide with their powerful gospel harmonies, died Tuesday at a Chicago hospital after a long illness, her daughter Mary Campbell said. The Barrett Sisters, raised on Chicago's South Side and coached to sing by an aunt, grew up to become what music critic Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune has called "the greatest female trio in gospel history. " The sisters recorded their first album together, Jesus Loves Me, in the mid-1960s.

After reading Monica Yant Kinney's column on the new archbishop of Philadelphia ("Chaput isn't the change reform-minded Catholics had in mind," Wednesday), I am somewhat curious as to how she is qualified to write on matters of faith. In particular, she scolded Archbishop Charles Chaput for chastising "cafeteria Catholics for daring to put their lives before faith. " That statement is puzzling beyond belief. Being a Catholic has always meant putting your faith before your life. It is what countless martyrs did for almost 2,000 years in professing their faith in Christ and His holy church.

Rejoice & Shout , filmmaker Don McGlynn's raucous new documentary about gospel music in America, reaches all the way back to 1902, when Virginia's Dinwiddie Colored Quartet made the first African American religious recordings, almost two decades before the first jazz and blues records. Listening in on the music that came out of black Baptist and Pentecostal churches in the century since, Rejoice & Shout focuses attention on big-name and not-so-big-name gospel greats, from Mahalia Jackson and the Staple Singers to the Golden Gate Quartet and Swan Silvertones.

A few upcoming gospel-centric events in the Philadelphia region: Taste of Philadelphia featuring James "JJ" Hairston and Youthful Praise: Day 3 of the Wawa Welcome America! kickoff event features local gospel choirs, jazz and blues. Among the artists are Frank Bey and the Swing City Blues Band, Delton Walker, the Sounds of Life Choir and Zak Williams and One Akord. Hairston and Youthful Praise wrap things up at 6 p.m. on the RiverStage. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday, Penn's Landing, free, www.welcomeamerica.com . (Taste of Philly gets under way at 5 tonight with headliner Gerald Veasley.

GOSPEL'S ROOTS go deep in Philadelphia, where many of the genre's great artists came to live and perform during the heyday of the 1940s and 1950s. Many are featured in the new history-of-gospel documentary "Rejoice and Shout," although some local disciples will be disappointed that the film makes no mention of Philadelphian Charles Albert Tindley, considered by many to be a father of gospel, if not the father. "Rejoice" assigns that honor to converted bluesman Thomas Dorsey, although writer and historian Bill Carpenter, featured in the movie and author of the gospel history "Uncloudy Days," gives Tindley his due. "Tindley was writing gospel songs - successful ones - long before the world heard of Thomas A. Dorsey.

NASHVILLE - The Southern Baptist Convention approved a new resolution at its meeting in Arizona this week advocating a path to legal status for illegal immigrants, in a move that policy leader Richard Land described as "a really classic illustration of gospel love and gospel witness. " The resolution passed Wednesday also calls on Southern Baptists to minister to all people and to reject bigotry and harassment toward all people, regardless of their country of origin or immigration status.

JOE STANCZAK is at the end of his rope. And I'm hoping Jesus can help him the way He helped Marie DeLany. Stanczak lives on East Russell Street, in Tioga, where two-bit dealers peddle dope right outside his living-room windows. They lounge on his steps. Once, a particularly brazen salesman held court on a chair that had been left at the curb as trash. "I'm glad he was comfortable," says Stanczak, sarcastically. Whenever Stanczak calls the cops, the dealers scatter. But the next day, they're back.