Woodie Alan backing gospel choir

There is a group of mothers of kids at our school, Dulwich College, who sing in a gospel choir, led by the school’s head of the music department. I heard them perform at an art show and auction last month and thought they were really good. I asked them if they’d be interested in joining us on stage for a few songs, and they jumped a the opportunity.

It’s always been my dream to perform with a gospel choir though the vision usually involved 150 African American women, purple robes and a big Hammond organ. Well, close enough.

We did four songs together and I have video of most of them. It was hard to get the balance of sound right but overall it worked great and was really fun. When we finished everyone was hooting and hollering and asking for more. Someone yelled out, “do one a cappela.” I thought it was a great idea and told them to go for it. They started singing, Woodie joined in to give them some backing. I jumped in with some leads. It was grooving. Lu Wei started giving it a little backbeat then Zhang Yong threw in a bass line and bam, we were cooking with oil.

Happy to have gotten most of it on video. Just as they started really soaring, alas, the memory filled up.