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Berklee Gospel & Roots Choir, Live In Concert: Newport Folk 2014

The Berklee Gospel & Roots Choir performs at the 2014 Newport Folk Festival.
Adam Kissick for NPR
The Berklee Gospel & Roots Choir performs at the 2014 Newport Folk Festival.

In the past, the Berklee Gospel & Roots Choir has been employed as a sort of Newport Folk Festival palate-cleanser: a way to kick off the day with something kind, approachable, reverent and rooted in many folk traditions. This year, with Mavis Staples on top of the bill, the group, which opens the proceedings on Sunday, functioned as both and a theme-setter.

As its name suggests, the group features some of the best and brightest at the talent-rich Berklee College of Music in Boston. Hear the Berklee Gospel & Roots Choir perform Negro spirituals and contemporary gospel as part of the 2014 Newport Folk Festival, recorded live on Sunday, July 27 in Newport, R.I.

Set List

  • "Give Me Jesus"
  • "Ain't That A Good News"
  • "Elijah Rock"
  • "Be With Me"
  • "Jesus Will"
  • "Come By Here"
  • "Break Every Chain"
  • Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)