Word: chariot
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...music, which, with the single exception of country music, has supplied them with every new idea since the blues. Last week, with appropriate fanfare, they proclaimed they had found the sound: pop gospel. Waving contracts and recording tape, Columbia Records moved into a new Manhattan nightclub called the Sweet Chariot and began packaging such devotional songs as He's All Right for the popular market. "It's the greatest new groove since rock 'n' roll," said Columbia Pop A. & R. Director David Kapralik. "In a month or two, it'll be all over the charts...
Still, everyone behaved well: the trade papers ran cheerful forecasts and chitchat columnists began comparing the Sweet Chariot's society audience to the old Peppermint Lounge gang. Within three weeks of its opening night, the Chariot was so happily crowded that its owner announced plans to open two more Sweet Chariots in Chicago and Los Angeles...
...call it "ofay gospel") does not necessarily corrupt either singers or songs. But its adoption by the popular-record industry gives good reason for melancholy. To succeed with the predominantly teen-age audience, it will be hyped up and sanitized to the point of becoming grotesque. At the Sweet Chariot (where the rest rooms are labeled "Brothers" and "Sisters" and the bar girls are called "Angels"), two of the groups have already had their names changed by Columbia, and no doubt they will soon begin to sing arrangements of their music that are "more commercial...
...presentations are in this vein. All the Things You Are, Shadrach, Ride the Chariot, and Blue Moon demonstrate that they can sing straight songs, and sing them quite well. The arrangements of these old standards are refreshing and interesting, and the group is capable of sometimes difficult harmonies. Unlike many amateur college groups, the Dunces maintain consistently accurate intonation, and their voices blend into sweet, as well as powerful sounds...
...follow, the murder of Agamemnon and of herself. Her speeches begin with little more than unintelligible bird-like cries of mantic possession, but gradually clarify to explicit prophecy, yet all opaque to the listeners ... The Queen reappears to order her indoors. Cassandra stands still, rapt and benumbed, in her chariot where she has been left when the King, quiting his, has walked into his palace on that fatal Purple Carpet, very symbol of mortals trampling on that which belongs to the gods only. "I can't stand here wrangling with a slave," says Klytemnestra, and goes back into the palace...