ADRIENNE SAMUELS GIBBSADRIENNE SAMUELS GIBBS on February 9, 2015

Beyonce performs during Grammy Awards on Sunday. | Larry Busacca/Getty Images

ANOINTED DEBATE: SHOULD BEYONCE HAVE SUNGANOINTED DEBATE: SHOULD BEYONCE HAVE SUNGCHICAGO’S OWN ‘PRECIOUS LORD’CHICAGO’S OWN ‘PRECIOUS LORD’

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Beyonce in her angel dress at the Grammys. | John Shearer/Invision/APBeyonce in her angel dress at the Grammys. | John Shearer/Invision/AP

There’s something everyone should know when considering and analyzing Beyonce’s

Grammy performance of Thomas Dorsey‘s gut-wrenching gospel staple “Take My

Hand, Precious Lord.”

It’s this: The song was written after Dorsey’s wife and newborn baby died and he

writhed in pain, begging God to take even a piece of the hurt away. And anyone who is

familiar with the African-American church — funerals in particular — has heard this

song sung with a gut-punch. It’s not upbeat. It’s not fast. Rather, it’s poignant and

intended to show how God does heal the singer and, as many in the black church

might say, it offers proof of the “comforter” of the Holy Spirit.

It’s not a song to be sung lightly or without consideration. And that’s why there is a

schism between those who appreciated Beyonce’s literal, angel-in-a-see-through-

dress translation of the song and those who preferred Ledisi’s rendition (as Mahalia

Jackson) in the movie “Selma.”

Reporter Adrienne Samuels Gibbs saw this on a friend’sReporter Adrienne Samuels Gibbs saw this on a friend’s

Facebook timeline this morning in response to aFacebook timeline this morning in response to a

Beyonce post.Beyonce post.

Beyonce also swiftly came online today to post a video explaining why she asked to

sing the song. Being that Chicago’s Pilgrim Baptist Church is the home of Dorsey and

the birthplace of gospel music, it is only fair that local musicians and ministers weigh

in on the controversy.

Grammy-nominated gospel producer Percy Bady, who sits on the local Grammy

chapter, says he woke up to a Facebook timeline chock-full of judgments. “The

concern is this: Look, this is a staple for us who grew up in the black church,” says the

well-known producer who has years in the industry and is the minister of music for

New Life Covenant Church. “And, coming out of Pilgrim Baptist Church here in

Chicago, there’s a reverence that we have. No disrespect to Beyonce; she can sing

anything. But, her rendition of ‘Precious Lord’ did not move me. It’s one of those

songs you sing from another place.”

He goes on. “I saw it for

what it was: She

performed. I

wasn’t expecting to be slain

in the spirit and wallowing

on the floor or anything. It

almost makes you wonder if

this was a situation where

the Grammys said, ‘Hey,

this is what we’re gonna

d0.'”

Bady is not alone. Many of

Chicago’s Facebook pundits

are saying they believe

Beyonce really sang the

song because that’s the only

way the Grammys could get

the superstar to show up for

the telecast. The official

word, however, from John

Legend, is that Beyonce

asked, and he and Common said yes.

Regardless. It’s the talk of the town for churchfolk everywhere. The memes alone

— some of them using Jackson’s image — are to die for. And of course Black Twitter

very quickly created the hashtag #beysus, which was trending by midafternoon the

day after the show.

“It wasn’t a bad performance,” says Walt Whitman, founder of the Soul Children of

Chicago. “It wasn’t like she was horrible, but maybe it wasn’t the power piece that

would best represent that piece of music.”

But, says Whitman, there’s the political side of the performance as well. “There’s so

many different levels to this that you’re dealing with. You had all those gospel artists

in the room and any one of them could have killed it, but you chose not to. And in

some cases, I believe they just don’t know. We’re making assumptions that the people

[who produce] the Grammys know about anointing.”

And here’s Whitman’s clincher: “We’re not dealing with church. We’re dealing with

people who do music as a profession, and they are looking at numbers and the

bottom line for the TV show.”

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The general consensus of those interviewed here is that Queen Bey was not there to

bring people to God — and perhaps it was unfair to expect that she might. She’s a

secular, not a gospel, artist. “Beyonce did what Beyonce does: She performed,” says

singer and Deacon Joi Buchanan-Johnson, also one of the conductors for the woman’s

choir at Trinity United Church of Christ. “There is a difference between performance

and ministry. If you’ve heard the song, you know it was a song that comforted you.

And visually [she] has this semi-see-through dress on. Beyonce is a performer to her

bone.”

Other pundits say the entire incident — including a so-called “snub” against singer

Ledisi, who portrayed Mahalia Jackson and sang “Precious Lord” in the movie — was

contrived in order to get more people to talk about the controversy and

increase ratings. And on that end, all agreed that Ledisi was gracious in her response

to ET’s Kevin Frazier when asked about it:

“What I will say and what I’m excited about is that I had the pleasure of playing an

iconic figure in ‘Selma,’ and the song, ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord,’ it’s been going

on forever — starting with the queen, Mahalia [Jackson], the queen of soul Aretha

Franklin,” said the soul singer. “Then, I was able to portray and sing my version of

the song, and now we have Beyoncé. Her generation will now know the song, so I’m a

part of history.”

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ADRIENNE SAMUELS GIBBSAdrienne Samuels Gibbs covers arts, culture andentertainment for the Chicago Sun-Times. Tweet her@adriennewrites or email agibbs@suntimes.com. A Chicagonative, she's proud of her Morgan Park Mustangs and herNorthwestern Wildcats. She lives on the South Side.

@ADRIENNEWRITES#

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