Religious Songs and Drums in the Bahamas

The breadth of Caribbean religion is on display right here. On one hand there's the gospel singing of down home Christianity and, on the other, there's drumming that's straight out of Africa — and somehow the two co-exist quite peacefully. The Baptist Methodist Group (whose open joy seems to mark them as more Baptist than dour Methodist), a small group of singers accompanied by just piano, are captured in wonderfully casual fashion, while the Church of God Congregation in Nassau, with plenty of brass and happy clapping, sound as if they could have come over from New Orleans; they pair the rollicking freedom of Dixieland jazz matched with the jubilation of voices bound for glory. But the real surprise is in the frantic Obeah drumming — unexpected in what had been such a genteel British colony. It's a sign that, whatever happens and wherever people go, the old ways always live on and flourish.