Soulkiss Live: Revival Beyond Religion

For me the experience that is Soulkiss begins as soon as I walk into the venue, in this case the Triad Theatre, an upstairs cabaret just off Broadway in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Everyone is already smiling. Strangers strike up conversation in line for the bathroom as if they were family at a reunion. And for that evening, they are. The crowd at a Soulkiss concert is always multi-racial and multi-generational, reflecting the diversity of the singers themselves and their ability to create community wherever they go.

The band ready, with the incomparable Ron Gilmore on keys, Soulkiss walks down aisle and takes stage with a Tim Dillinger original “You Take the Clouds Away.” The crowd is with them immediately, clapping, moving, cheering. Tim is in the center with a new hair color, red this time. To his right is David Sosa his long, dark curls tumbling, his face luminous. And Kare Alford to Tim’s left is wearing…a kilt, complete with a sporran, and not just any kilt but a Douglas plaid as a surprise for my husband Douglas who inspired this bold sartorial move.

In case you are wondering, sporran is Gaelic for purse. It hangs from the waist to rest over the man’s groin. It serves as a pocket for the pocketless kilt, but until you have seen Kare Alford perform Bill Wither’s “Use Me” you really don’t know what a sporran is for. He uses it to tremendous comic and erotic advantage. The crowd howls and I bond with the woman sitting next to me, exchanging high fives as she shouts out: “What you got in that purse!” and I holler: "Shake your sporran!"

The singers take turns as lead, each one’s style distinctive. Kare, also an actor, turns his songs into stories, using his face and his body to engage, and well, command the audience. David’s voice has a grace that is both intricate and sounds effortless. His hands and fingers follow all the small notes and the nuance he brings to songs like Rachel Farrell’s “I Gotta Go” and his virtuoso rendition of Burt Bachrach’s “A House is Not a Home.” I don’t have an accurate octave count of Tim’s range, but it is huge, and on full display in Charles Stepney’s “Love has Fallen on Me” made famous by Chaka Khan. A Gospel singer from an early age, Tim knows how to catch the Holy Ghost, as he calls it. He opens himself and goes, and he takes everyone with him.

Part the joy of a Soulkiss concert is the obvious joy the singers take in each other’s talent. The three share a house together and pool all the resources to make the music happen. Rehearsal begins at home and happens every night. One of the thrills of the evening, for which the rowdy audience held its breath, is the trio’s a cappella rendition of The Beatle’s “Yesterday.”

The only bad thing about a Soulkiss concert is that it has to end, but what an ending: LaBelle’s “Going Down Makes Me Shiver.” By this time I have begun to suspect that my fellow enthusiast is none other than Sarah Dash, one of Soulkiss’s “mothers” along with Reba Rambo Rambo McGuire Susaye Greene, Charlene Moore and I am happy to say, me! Sarah has performed this song with LaBelle, and Tim is singing her part. She is transported, and so is everyone else. Everyone in the place joins in on the chorus, singing “going down to your river, going down to your river.” That’s where we are, at the river, the source. With no need to repent, to profess a creed, we are at a revival, souls washed through with song: we are revived.


For more about Soulkiss and about Elizabeth and The Maeve Chronicles.

Soulkiss: "the touch of spirit on the body"

Sometimes I wonder about the first human note ever sung. Did it come from one throat or from many? Was the first song a lullaby, a lament, a hymn of praise?

When I get tired of hearing people talk about "the universe" (and what it wants or doesn't) I remind myself that universe could translate as "one song." I like the idea of living in a song, of being sung into being by a song. In CS Lewis's series of children's novels The Chronicles of Narnia, the lion Aslan creates the world with song, from the stars to the tiniest plants and animals. In Prayers of the Cosmos, author Neil Douglas-Klotz offers as one of several alternative translations from the Aramaic Abwoon d'bwashmaya (Our Father who art in heaven) "O thou! The Breathing Life of All, Creator of the Shimmering Sound that touches us."

I don't know that Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet, was thinking of song when he wrote: "There is one kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of spirit on the body."* To me those words express why singing is so powerful--and why Soulkiss is such a perfect name for Tim Dillinger, David Sosa, and Kare Alford's vocal trio.

Last weekend Soulkiss came to my release party for MaevenSong, my first recording, co-produced by Tim Dillinger (see "The Making of MaevenSong" in the archives of this blog.) In most venues, they appear with their band, and the experience of a full-on Soulkiss concert is not to be missed. (Next one: The Triad 2/13 in NYC; details at www.TimDillinger.com). My party was a more intimate celebration, and they sang solo and harmony with no back up, no microphone, just the naked beauty of the human voice being received by a circle who held and honored that vulnerbility, that power, that touch of spirit on the body.

I had planned only to play cuts from MaevenSong, but, inspired by Soulkiss, I also sang a cappella. After the performances, we did what I love best at a gathering: we improvised. The drums came out, here and there a flute, and the voices, all our voices. At one point I put Soulkiss on the spot: "Start a chant!" And David Sosa sang out: "Flow like a river, ebb like the tide." And everyone sang with him, creating harmonies, counterparts, and the chant became enchantment, the flow and ebb of river and tide moving through us all. In that moment, we might have been the first singers, creating the first song, being created by that song.

I love Soulkiss. Please get to a concert, support their album in progress: www.timdillinger.com. I am very proud of MaevenSong, which is now available here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ecunningham. But most of all remember to sing! There is one kiss we want, and it is ours for a song.

*translation of line from Rumi poem by Coleman Barks