Essi­ba Small

There was a time in his life when mu­sic min­is­ter Samuel Dy­er was laughed at by his peers at school. He told the sto­ry of the pain it caused him and the de­pressed feel­ings that fol­lowed dur­ing one of his song breaks at last Fri­day night's True Wor­ship–Songs of Ado­ra­tion con­cert. But no one was laugh­ing when the singer took to the stage at the con­cert's Evan­gel Tem­ple, Barataria venue. In fact, many peo­ple al­lowed their tears to flow, touched by Dy­er's ethe­re­al and heart­felt vo­cals. The at­mos­phere of wor­ship had been mount­ing since ear­ly on in the night with the per­for­mance of Dar­ryl Li­onel Dou­glas. Psalmist Ja­son Bish­op, on elec­tric gui­tar, then took things to an­oth­er lev­el with a three song set that in­clud­ed New Breed's Al­pha and Omega, Friend of God and Here I Am To Wor­ship.

The for­mer In­vazion band mem­ber told the au­di­ence that he used to play at most car­ni­vals around the world but that now he is play­ing for Je­sus Christ. Bish­op re­mained on stage to ac­com­pa­ny Vanes­sa Brig­gs and Dy­er. She may have been small in stature but the boom­ing voice that came out of Brig­gs was a big sur­prise, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those lis­ten­ing to her live for the first time. She opened her set with Dami­ta Had­don's Watch Me Praise Him, which she de­liv­ered with lots of spunk, much to the de­light of the au­di­ence, be­fore mov­ing on to the jazzy You Love Me by Kar­ren Clarke (a gospel take on the Jill Scott song.) But, it was on the slow­er songs that her vo­cals re­al­ly opened up, as heard on Rev­e­la­tion Song, a tune which stirred emo­tions and brought some to their feet, arms up­raised.

It was Dy­er, backed by the Evan­gel Tem­ple Choir led by Kim­rol Ali, who lit­er­al­ly brought down the house. Dressed in a well-tai­lored black suit, Dy­er's falset­to ca­ressed songs like Paul Wilbur's Dance With Me (Lover Of My Soul), William Mc Dow­ell's Give My­self Away and Dar­win Hobb's He's Able. Au­di­ence mem­bers rose up for his ren­di­tion of How Great Is Our God and, by the time he got around to Is­rael and New Breed's With Long Life, peo­ple were danc­ing in the aisles. Some mem­bers of the Evan­gel Tem­ple choir were al­so seen wav­ing flags as they sang lusti­ly. The show end­ed lat­er than was ad­ver­tised but, from the packed church, no one seemed to mind. It is Dy­er's in­ten­tion to take True Wor­ship–Songs of Ado­ra­tion to dif­fer­ent church­es across the coun­try. The next con­cert is sched­uled for June.