Spreading the gospel (music

Spreading the go pel (music)

BY LAURA JOSEPH MOGIL

Poughkeepsie native and resident Ray Watkins was born into gospel music, which has always been a huge part of his life. By the time he was 10, Watkins was taking piano lessons, singing in his church choir and aspiring to be like his idol, Ray Charles.

“My whole family, including my three siblings and my parents, were involved in music in some way or the other,” says Watkins. “My dad was in a gospel band called the Hudson Jubileers, which sang on a local radio station, WKIP, in the 1940s.”

Now Watkins is making it his mission to share gospel music with as many people as he can in the Hudson Valley. As chair of the Hudson Valley Gospel Festival, he is now in the throws of planning the second annual festival, which will take place on Sept. 18 at Bowdoin Park in Poughkeepsie. According to Watkins, gospel music by definition is a relatively new art form. “Gospel music had its roots in Negro spirituals. The genre made its popular debut in the 1930s thanks inaugural Hudson Valley Gospel Festival, presented in partnership with Dutchess Tourism, Arts Mid-Hudson and local churches, held its inaugural event Feb. 21 to 23, 2020 at the Majed K. Nesheiwat Convention Center and Changepoint Theatre in Poughkeepsie. Tickets were $50 per day and $130 for the whole weekend.

Highlights included performances by Just Voices, the West Point Gospel Choir, the Livingston College Gospel Choir, and appearances by gospel singers Everett Drake and Edwrin Sutton. Also performing was the Hudson Valley Gospel Festival Choir, which Watkins had started specifically for the festival.

In addition to the performances, the festival featured events on the history of gospel music and workshops for youth ages 6 to 18. The event was attended by more than 100 people each day.

This year the Hudson Valley Gospel Festival had to be postponed to the fall due to Covid. The trimmed-back festival will take place on Sept. 18, from 1 to 5 pm, and will be held outside at Bowdoin Park in Poughkeepsie. According to Watkins, the festival organizers are expecting around 500 people.

To promote the event, Watkins has been working with Arts Mid-Hudson on monthly Zoom programs that are open to the public. Presentations on the history of gospel music in the Hudson Valley featured such topics as youth in gospel music and the making of the Hudson Valley Gospel Festival Choir. Arts Mid-Hudson is also promoting the gospel festival on all its social media channels and in local press and electronic media.

This year’s festival will feature the Hudson Valley Gospel Festival Choir, along with the West Point Gospel Choir, the Bethel Church of God in Christ Praise Team/Poughkeepsie and Bethel Missionary Baptist Choir. Watkins has also invited other choirs from Westchester, Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan and Orange counties. In addition, there will be a performance by the Pioneers of Jazz, a 20-piece ensemble. Watkins says, “It’s a natural choice, since gospel and jazz go hand-in-hand.”

to musicians and composers such as Thomas Dorsey, who was considered the father of gospel music,” he says.

The second half of the great migration of African Americans (beginning in 1940) brought many gospel quartets north, and interest in gospel music began to spread to New York City and outward to the Hudson Valley. Local stars included Marva Clark, Gretchen Reed and Toni Graham. In addition, many nationally famous gospel singers, including the legendary Mahalia Jackson, performed at various churches in the area as well as at venues like the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie.

Watkins recalls that gospel music bands were also featured on the radio by broadcasters such as Willie Hutson, whose “Hutson Gospel Train” aired weekly on WKIP starting in the 1960s.

While the public’s interest in gospel music waned in the 1970s, Watkins says his interest in the subject never subsided. He resumed playing piano and singing in his church choir as soon as he returned from a stint in the U.S. Navy in 1974. (While in the Navy, he played popular music for the ship’s band).

“After I returned, I grew to understand my father’s gospel music better,” Watkins says. “I wanted to find out more about the Hudson Jubileers and locate their recordings, but I found out there wasn’t anything out there.” As his research expanded, he was introduced to people who helped him in his efforts to dig deeper into the roots of local gospel music.

One of the organizations he got in touch with in the early 1990s was Arts Mid-Hudson, a Poughkeepsie nonprofit that helps drive support for the mid-Hudson Valley’s diverse, thriving arts community. Watkins joined the nonprofit’s board of directors and helped the nonprofit develop programs promoting gospel music through its Folk Arts initiative.

For 13 consecutive years, starting in 1994, Arts Mid-Hudson organized annual Christmas concerts at Poughkeepsie’s First Presbyterian Church, where African-American gospel music was performed as part of the series “Giving it Back: Folk Arts of the Mid-Hudson Valley.” According to Watkins, “The church was located in a central part of town and could hold over1,000 people. There were times when it was filled close to capacity.

“There were people who loved gospel music but weren’t going into places to hear it. The 'Giving it Back: Folk Arts of the Mid-Hudson Valley' series was a first step in bringing it back to the Hudson Valley,” he adds. “My focus was to showcase gospel music in public places as opposed to just behind the four walls of a church on Sundays.”

In 2019, Watkins was contacted by Dutchess Tourism and asked if he would be interested in organizing a gospel festival in the area. The

The Hudson Valley Gospel Festival is held in partnership with Arts Mid-Hudson and supported by a community committee that Watkins chairs. While there is technically no budget for this year’s event, the finances to cover professional sound technicians and other fees will be raised by revenue earned at the gate. Tickets are $15 for general admission, $10 for students and seniors and free for children under age 5. For more, visit artsmidhudson.org.

Laura Joseph Mogil is a freelance writer living in Briarcliff Manor. Reach her at lauramogil@gmail.com.

The Hudson Jubileers circa 1940. Ray Watkins’ father, Alexander Watkins, is second from left, standing. Photograph by the former State(s) Studio in Poughkeepsie.

Quick Tips to Stay Healthy in the 2021 Baseball Season

Dr. Brandon Erickson is a Sports Medicine Surgeon at Rothman Orthopaedics and serves as an assistant team physician for the Philadelphia Phillies. He has a special interest in shoulder, elbow and knee injuries to athletes and non-athletes alike and sees patients in Manhattan and Westchester County, NY.

The 2021 baseball season is fast approaching and many players are anxious to ramp back up as quickly as possible. However, most athletes saw a disruption to their normal routine in 2020 because of the pandemic. As such, most baseball players, specifically pitchers, did not go through their normal in season or off-season routines. This could make these athletes susceptible to injury in 2021. This post will give a few quick tips to help minimize the risk of injury in 2021.

PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR BODY.

Your workload is often defined by a combination of innings pitched, pitches thrown, batters faced, days of rest in between outings, etc. While workload can vary from year to year, most athletes stay relatively consistent with some increase or decrease in workload each year. As 2020 caused most players to have a decreased workload, athletes must be cognizant of this when entering 2021. All of your workload metrics decreased in 2020.

While it would be nice to simply revert back to your 2019 workload, this may not be possible as your body may not be able to tolerate that workload yet. It is important to listen to your body as your workload begins to increase, and understand the difference between mild soreness after a game or pain.

Soreness is to be expected and is no cause for concern. Pain that prevents you from doing your normal activities, that wakes you up at night, or that lingers more than a couple of days can be cause for concern. Oftentimes, you know your body better than anyone, and it will tell you if things are not going well. Just remember to pay attention.

STRETCH

One of the easiest ways to decrease risk of shoulder and elbow injury is to properly stretch. This specifically applies to the throwing shoulder, trunk of the body, and hips. For the shoulder, external and internal rotation are extremely important, especially in pitchers. Similarly, internal rotation is paramount for the hips, especially in the landing leg for pitchers as it is necessary to rotate over this leg to generate a forceful pitch. Players who lose motion in any of these areas place themselves at risk of shoulder and elbow injury. Therefore, a daily stretching routine should be instituted for baseball players in an effort to decrease their risk of injury.

START A STRENGTHENING PROGRAM.

While stretching is very important, it’s also important to strengthen the muscles of your shoulder, shoulder blade, and your core. The shoulder blade functions as the foundation of the shoulder in a throwing athlete. When the shoulder blade is in a good position because the muscles originating from the shoulder blade are strong and firing, it can decrease the risk of shoulder injuries in throwing athletes.

Similarly, a strong core can help take stress off of the upper body during the throwing cycle and therefore can help decrease injury risk. A band routine for scapular stabilization and a core workout several times per week is a helpful way to keep the athlete healthy.

GIVE YOURSELF PLENTY OF TIME TO ADAPT TO YOUR THROWING PROGRAM.

One of the most common ways pitchers get injuries is because they try to rush back to pitching before their arm is ready. It takes several months for a pitcher’s arm to be ready to throw competitively. This is one of the reasons spring training in professional baseball is so long, and is why pitchers and catchers report first.

It’s important to take the necessary amount of time to complete a throwing progression before trying to throw in a game. Whether this takes 6 weeks or 10 weeks, the important thing is that the shoulder and elbow are ready to see the stress placed on them during a game. Make sure to complete each stage of the throwing progression without skipping steps, or rushing through different checkpoints.

For more information or to make an appointment, please visit RothmanNY.com or call 888-636-7840.