Cable TV Show Will Offer Big Names of Gospel Music

Be thankful for the low spots and the dull narration in “Family Reunion--A Gospel Music Celebration.”

Without the low points, the voltage from this musical blowout might leave viewers writhing on the floor. Television sets might explode and fires break out across the land.

“Family Reunion,” appearing Saturday on the CBN Cable Network, offers two hours of hits from some of the biggest names in gospel music, including the Rev. James Cleveland, the Clark Sisters, Andrae Crouch, Sandra Crouch, Jessy Dixon, Edwin Hawkins, Thelma Houston, Billy Preston, Bebe and Cece Winans, and the Mighty Clouds of Joy.

What is wrong with the packaging can be summed up in two words: Dick Clark.

The ageless record-spinner, planted beside a fireplace, has little to say about the history or the meaning of gospel music. His role seems to be to assure the uninitiated that it is OK to listen because the Beatles did, too.

He might have said more about the history of gospel because a lot is implied by the songs and the singers. “Precious Lord,” sung here by Della Reese, was written in 1931 by Thomas A. Dorsey, the man who invented gospel.

Cleveland was a boy soprano in Dorsey’s choir at the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago. In the 1960s, as the “crown prince of gospel,” Cleveland worked with such young people as Billy Preston, Jessy Dixon and Aretha Franklin.

Dixon hits one of the program’s high points with a bluesy rendition of Professor Alex Bradford’s “I’m Too Close to Heaven (and I Can’t Turn Around).”

Cleveland, whose growling voice and dabbing handkerchief recall Louis Armstrong, comes up next and steals the show with “Peace, Be Still.”

The song was a huge hit in gospel terms, selling 800,000 albums in the 1960s. It is a dramatic piece in which Cleveland sweats, shouts, sings and preaches, turning down the volume with a peremptory “shhh!” and then building to another plateau.

“Family Reunion” covers some of the same territory covered last year with Paul Simon in the Cinemax special, “Everybody Say Yeah!” Andrae Crouch, Jennifer Holliday, the Hawkins Singers and the Mighty Clouds of Joy appeared on both shows.

There is even the same quotation from James Baldwin--”there is no music like that music”--which, if you think about it, applies to Lawrence Welk and a lot of other styles, too. But you get the point.

High follows high, sometimes in unexpected places. Hawkins’ familiar hit, “Oh Happy Day,” is given some needed rough edges by the fiery, strutting solo work of Thelma Houston.

Tramaine Hawkins--wife of Edwin’s brother, Walter--lights up the place with “Changed.”

Finally, the Crouch who wrecks the house isn’t Andrae but his sister, Sandra. This regal lady, a hard-working choir director through much of the show, takes the solo part as she whips a quartet and chorus through a rousing performance of “He’s Worthy.”

Amid all the stars, the show’s last high point is hit by an unidentified young woman who steps out of the choir in “He’s Worthy,” and she’s ready.

Not only has she picked up a couple of microphone moves from Joe Ligon of the Mighty Clouds, but she has a huge voice that lifts the roof. It bodes well for the future of gospel.

Elsewhere in television:

BLAKE HONORED--Director Blake Edwards will be honored at the second annual American Comedy Awards with the Lifetime Creative Achievement Award. Edwards made such films as “The Pink Panther,” “Victor-Victoria,” “10,” and more recently “Blind Date” and “That’s Life.” The awards show will be broadcast May 17 on ABC. . . .

HUBBY GUESTS--Jessica Walter’s real-life husband, Ron Leibman, plays her ex-husband on an upcoming episode of NBC’s “Aaron’s Way.” In the April 20 episode, Connie’s roving ex shows up to seek custody of their son, Mickey (Christopher Gartin). . . .

‘LAW’ PRODUCER SWITCH--Rick Wallace has joined the NBC hit show “L.A. Law” as co-executive producer with Steven Bochco, succeeding Gregory Hoblit who has gone off to direct Al Pacino in a feature film called “Sea of Love.” Hoblit was a writer and producer of Bochco’s “Hill Street Blues.” Wallace was a director on that series and produced Bochco’s “Bay City Blues.” . . .

KALB SERIES--Journalist Bernard Kalb will be host of “Global Rivals,” a four-part series on Soviet-American relations that will premiere next fall on PBS. Kalb first visited the Soviet Union in 1956. The series will feature analysis and commentary by Seweryn Bialer, a professor of political science at Columbia University.