Listening to James Cleveland

Because my uncle Robert Moore, our Conyers, Ga., singing version of James Cleveland, recently died, I've been listening to the music of the actual James Cleveland and have concluded that James Cleveland was not a happy man within himself. Listen to him sing the songs he sang and that some of us still sing nearly 20 years after his death. He was one of Aretha's big brothers in life; he lived in her family's household led by the Rev. C. L. Franklin. Gladys Knight was an inspiration. So, too, James Brown. He was the founder of the Gospel Music Workshop of America. He died in 1991. And these are some of his words:

“I don’t mind if you use me, until you use me up.”

“Save me, Lord” they said on the mourner’s bench and that he sang about. “Whatever you have need of me, I’m willing. Save me, Lord.”

There is no self-esteem there, no feeling that he could make it in the world in which he lived. The world in which we still live in. There’s this overwhelming sadness and God/Jesus comes in to be the burden bearer that he did not have in this life. Listen to him. Tell me what you bring from his songs.

He wanted God to work those miracles that were not happening in everyday life at an ordinary pace. Even his garrish homegoing services said that.

He could never live up to what Jesus sacrificed, but he also could not deal with the sins he thought he had to bear, among them -- in his mind and in his time, 1931-1991 -- his sexuality. He was ready for the chariot to take him away.

"God so loved the world that he gave his only 'begotten”'son".. That's the lyric, but what does that mean? Who were his mother and father? What was his life other than in the choir or as a composer/arranger?

I want to write something meaningful about what he was saying in the songs he sang. Help me by contributing your thoughts. A few paragraphs. A few pages. Whatever. Let's talk about James. Share this with your own networks and invite your family and friends to contribute. Thanks.

E. R. Shipp