#1915 - Music That Matches Our Souls: Henry L. Carrigan, Jr.

Our guest, musician and music journalist Henry L. Carrigan, Jr., takes us on a journey through America’s rich heritage of religious music in his recent book, Fifteen Spirituals That Will Change Your Life.

The book includes spirituals from Amazing Grace and Precious Lord, Take My Hand to Steal Away to Jesus and I’ll Fly Away. Each chapter explores brief history of the song, its setting and composer, examining key lyrics, illustrating ways it expresses themes of comfort, healing, community, hope, and love. Fifteen Spirituals encourages readers to listen to favorite, or unfamiliar, Gospel songs to discover their transforming power.

Guitarist and music critic Henry L. Carrigan, Jr. has been playing Gospel music all his life and writes about Gospel, Soul, Blues, and Americana music for No Depression: The Quarterly Journal of Roots Music and Living Blues. He’s interviewed many musical greats including Rosanne Cash, Rick Bragg, and Kris Kristofferson. Andraé Crouch’s If Heaven Were Never Promised to Me changed Henry’s life when he was playing in a Jesus band in college, and he’s worked in churches, played spirituals in prison ministry, and taught religion and music in various colleges and in workshops. He teaches classes on Gospel in churches and has developed an extensive playlist of songs for such classes.