"Alternatives to Valium" goes to church

Even Scots got soul. Arts/culture blog "Alternatives to Valium" recently visited the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and wrote one of the most wonderful pieces about the Soulsville dream that we've seen in a long time...

Looking for the birthplace of southern soul, I came across the Hooper Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopalian church which used to stand in Duncan, Mississippi, 100 miles south of Memphis on Highway 61. It was a spartan building with hard pews, an ornate pulpit and a piano that was never tuned.

By the right aisle was a case containing a paper fan with a portrait of Mahalia Jackson on it, and a notice, with an explanatory message from Deanie Parker, whose grandfather founded the church in 1906: "The full moon would shine brightly, casting a shadow on the bayou. The sounds of the bullfrogs and crickets were drowned out by the stirring music that reverberated from thigh-slapping male quartets. The visiting preacher, along with the unrehearsed choirs singing R&B selections, could be heard way down the road past the silos and bamboo thickets."

The Hooper Chapel is the second thing you see when you enter the Stax Museum of American Soul Music...

Enjoy the rest of their visit here.