Thorny issues: Wade in the Water

Saturday 16 January 2016

Wade in the Water

‘Take me to the river / dip me in the water,’ sang Al Green, to a beat that was over-the-top funky and sexy for even the licentious seventies. ‘I don’t know why I love you like I do...’ And then, after the object of his desire has taken his money and his cigarettes, we hear him begging her, in a throaty growl, to ‘wash him down’.

What he’s talking about, of course, is purification through baptism, if not in the Jordan at least in the Mississippi, or some other muddy stream. After which he will emerge transformed, born again, his feet placed on higher ground. Even when singing of lust, the Reverend Al Green, as he is known today, was using the language and images that he knew; i.e. that of the gospels and the American south, where going down to the river meant casting off one’s burden of sin and woe in the cleansing act of immersion.

Baptism in Crawford, Mississippi

River baptism, Louisiana

When did human beings begin using water as an element of ritual purification? Surely long before the dawn of recorded history. Water, after all, has always meant survival, healing and power. It was the waters of the River Styx that made Achilles invulnerable (except for his heel, by which Thetis, his mother, held him when she dipped him in it). The rivers and lakes of northern Europe were once filled with gold artefacts tossed in by the ancient Celts as offerings to their water gods. And every year, millions of Hindus still bathe in the murky Mother Ganges in attitudes of rapt veneration. Nor is it the only river to be held in such reverence by the people who live along its banks; the Niger, the Nile, the Mekong, and yes, the Mississippi (‘that Ol’ Man River, who just keeps rollin’ along’) share this same aspect of personified divinity.

Women bathing in the Ganges during Kumbha Mela

Muslim men washing before praying

Man waiting to be bathed at Lourdes (photo by Magic Bob!)

‘Wade in the Water’ is one of those ‘public domain’ spirituals that just about everybody in the gospel and folk music worlds seems to have sung at one time or another. Ramsey Lewis even had a jazzy instrumental hit with it back in the mid-60’s. The Staple Singers recorded their classic version in 1965, with Roebuck (Pops) doing the driving with his trademark tremelo-ed guitar, while the younger Staples join in on that unforgettable chorus. Then Mavis takes the mike and, as she has done so many times over the years, shows us that dazzling point of pure light where gospel, soul and R&B collide in a burst of blazing glory.

The Staples in the 1970s. L to R: Pops, Cleotha, Yvonne and Mavis

She’s still going strong at age 76. Check out this great performance from 2011!

Wade in the Water

Wade in the water

Wade in the water, children

Wade in the water

My God’s gonna trouble the water

See that host dressed in white