May 9, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS – Marsha Hansen, concert vocalist, inspirational speaker, and author, has helped many people hear and see the depth and power of African-American spirituals. Her new work explores the spirituals, with a little help from her friends-Keith Richards, Babi Floyd, and others.

Like families everywhere, when Hansen's family gathers, they like to eat good food, listen to good music, and tell stories. Her new book, My Soul is a Witness: The Message of the Spirituals in Word and Song, includes an inspiring audio CD.

One evening she and brother-in-law Keith Richards, lead guitarist for The Rolling Stones, invited some old friends to his home to play some music and discuss the roots of sacred African-American music. After an impromptu at-home recording session, done between meals, with lots of laughter and more serious moments of reflection, a CD emerged that will accompany the book.

The music is authentic and highly representative of the folk roots of the African-American spiritual-roots that are tapped and explained here by top-flight professional musicians. Babi Floyd, Blondie Chaplin, George Receli, Nick Tremulus, Paul Nowinski, Chuck Leavell, Steven Barber, and John Pirruccello joined with Keith Richards and Hansen and her daughter Jordan to interpret old songs in ways that fit the original mood and message of each one.

My Soul Is A Witness explores the deep messages of faith found in African-American sacred folk music. In the book Hansen explains that, despite the burdens of enslavement, an oppressed people came together and forged a community with a distinct shared inner life. The expression of their striving together to seek God in their midst is preserved in songs which have come to have universal appeal.

Beyond the music itself is the pure grace of the lyrics. Beyond the poetry of the lyrics is the profundity of the thoughts underlying the songs. My Soul Is A Witness speaks of struggle and triumph on the journey to embrace a faith and of the powerful oral tradition which resulted in a unique musical form. Each chapter closes with a Bible passage for reflection throughout the day.

Packaged in a beautiful gift book format, the book includes a 14-song audio CD.

"The spirituals are an extraordinarily rich lyric tradition, the result of centuries of self-selection and improvisation, and the root of all American music, popular and sacred. Even in their fragmentary form-and only a tiny fraction of all spirituals were ever transcribed-they reveal the mythic power inherent in a chained people, a power that would sustain them through one of humanity's darkest, most shameful hours. My Soul Is a Witness mines this lyric ore for a series of thought-provoking, wide-ranging, freewheeling reflections, each as distinctive as the spiritual that inspired it." – Robert Darden, Associate Professor of Journalism at Baylor University and senior editor of The Door Magazine; author of People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music, and former gospel music editor for Billboard magazine for ten years.

My Soul is a Witness: The Message of the Spirituals in Word and Song with Audio CD, By Marsha Hansen, Keith Richards appears on the CD courtesy of Virgin Records America, Inc., Item Number: 0-8066-5285-3, Specs: 128 pages, 7" x 8 7/8," hardcover with jacket and audio CD, Price: $19.99.

To order My Soul is a Witness please call Augsburg Fortress at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the Web site at http://www.augsburgfortress.org/.

Augsburg Fortress