Alex Boye Wants Jesus to Walk With Him - Part 2

Read Part 1
I’m thinking, there's only two reasons an Apostle calls someone....

to make them an Apostle or to kick them out of the Church. Which one do you think I thought? Elder Ballard says, I want you to come on assignment with me. I want you to be the singer and I want you to sing three songs. Do you have a pen and a paper? Yes Sir, I say as I’m scrambling to get a pen and paper. Elder Ballard says, first song, There is a Green Hill Far Away, do you know it? Yes Sir. Second song, I Know That My Redeemer Lives, do you know it? Yes Sir. Third song, I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked, do you know it? Yes Sir. I lied. I had never heard the third song before. As soon as I hung up with him I start searching everywhere, I’m all over Google, I finally found it on Youtube.

So I went on assignment with Elder Ballard and I had to get up to sing three times. I get up to sing the first song, and the Spirit just thrashes. Second song, I’m just thrashed. Third song, I get up and the Spirit just thrashes me again and finally it hit me, there was my answer. Those were the three songs I needed to finish the hymns album. So I went in and recorded the three songs, finish the album, and I get a call from Deseret Book. We want you to do a hymns album. I’m just like SHUT UP! I just recorded one I say. Be Still, My Soul: Classic Hymns and Folk Songs went to Deseret Book’s top 10 on the first day it was released. Months later it’s still there. It was such a testimony to me. I have had such a great response because of that album. Someone just wrote me on Facebook and said that her friend was going to commit suicide and heard one of the songs on the album and decided not to.

Sista Beehive asks, how is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir received by other religions and other Christian denominations? When the choir was going out to Oklahoma I was asked to go out some days before to do radio and TV spots. I went with Scott Barrick the choir’s General Manager. So we’re out there doing these promotions and the entire time I was thinking why did they ask me to do this? The questions were about the history of the choir and so on and you know there are so many people that could answer these questions better than me, I was just winging it.

So for one spot we had to split up, I had to go on my own and Scott Barrick was going elsewhere. I get dropped off at this radio station and I immediately realize it’s a black radio station. I start to get nervous. I’m thinking of course this where they leave me to go by myself, they just drove off and left me here. I’m just nervous and my head is spinning trying to think of all the controversial questions that they might ask me, Man I just knew they were gonna eat me up and spit me out. I was looking around like where are those Sistas in Zion when you need them.

So I walk in and sit in the reception area and I’m hearing Lil Wayne and Beyonce playing. Are you kidding me! This is where I’m gonna go and talk about the choir. It wasn’t even a Gospel station, straight up Hip Hop. I’m supposed to go in there and tell people to come to the choir. I start sweating, I didn’t know what to do, and I just start praying. I literally got on my knees in the reception area and I’m praying. The receptionist is just doing her nails or whatever and glaring at me. So, I can hear the radio personalities segment and they’re talking about things that get on their nerves and they are just all riled up. So one of the DJs comes out and he says, you the one that’s here with the choir? Yes Sir. You been in a radio station before? Yes Sir. Ok here’s the mic, come on and have a seat.

We get on air and the DJ says, what’s up I’m here with Alex Boye, tell me about the choir. So I nervously start to talk about the history of the choir and all of a sudden the DJ goes silent. There’s this long pause and then he says; I’ve been listening to that choir since I was seven years old. I remember the LPs, my Grandma use to listen to them. Then he starts praising the choir…on a Hip Hop station. The DJ says, let’s open up the lines. I said no, please don’t do that, come on guys. The first caller is on and he says, yeah, I wanna ask you something…I’m thinking here it goes…how can I get tickets for the concert? People are calling and asking great questions about the choir and the DJs are having a great time and they turn to me and they say, sing something. So I sing, I want Jesus to Walk With Me…in a Hip Hop station…brothas in the background saying Amen…in a Hip Hop station. I thought WOW!

I walked out of there, and you know what Sistas, I had to repent. I was called to be there. The Lord wanted me to be there. I had doubts, but those doubts were because of my limitations, what I thought I was going to get asked, and if I could do it because I was on my own. The Lord had my back, he sent me there for a reason. I was thinking of me, me, me.

Prior to us going to do the spots there was something like 75% of the tickets that still needed to be sold for that concert. I was there doing the promoting three days before the concert, the concert was sold out. One of the top ten experiences of my lifetime thus far. Oklahoma was incredible.

So tell us about this Sunday, says Sista Laurel. This Sunday, January 17, 2010, I will be a performing Negro Spirituals as a featured soloist with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for Music and the Spoken. I had the blessing of doing it last year, and they asked me to perform again this year. We thank Alex for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat with us. He hangs up… Girl, please remind me not to stand next to that man in a lightning storm? Why? If Santa Claus knows when you’re asleep or awake, you know Elder Ballard knows Alex fibbed about knowing that song!

Music and the Spoken Word, Sunday, January 17, 2010. To find out more about how you can attend, watch, or listen to this broadcast visit: http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/info/matsw.

To Learn more about Alex Boye visit: http://www.alexboye.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/alexboye.music


Your Sistas in the Gospel,
Sista Beehive and Sista Laurel

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Alex Boye Wants Jesus to Walk With Him - Part 1

Are you there? Yes, I’m here. The phone begins to ring. Hi Alex, It’s Sista Beehive and Sista Laurel. What’s up, how are you, he says. Wait a minute Sistas, he says in that smooth British accent, just let me turn down the M.J. I got blastin. He’s in the car; no doubt on his way to a meeting or a rehearsal, Alex Boye is a busy man! The three of us casually chat for a few minutes and do some catching up.

So Alex how long have you been with Motab (Mormon Tabernacle Choir), Sista Beehive asks. Three years now, I did the auditions and they asked me to report on January 6th. They said there are only two reasons you shouldn’t be there: either you're dead or on your honeymoon. I was neither so I showed up. That’s where I did the orientation of the choir school. You can’t miss it, if you do, you’re done, it’s over. So I did that, then it’s the exam, I was admitted into the choir and off to choir school. Choir school is about three months long. Man, it was hard-core, intense, but a good experience for me. It’s three nights a week, something like 12 hours a week. Choir school is where you are prepared to be in the choir. There’s one starting now, with about seventy-five new members.

What did you do before the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Sista Laurel asks. Hustle around trying to get girls, just being an idiot, you don't want to know! Oh really, we say, he has us intrigued. So can you share a pick up line you used to use back in the day? He does…it’s bad. We’re not gonna do a Brotha like that and tell you what it was…furthermore we suggest he stop telling people he ever said it. Fortunately, someone was nice enough not to hold it against him. We know his wife; she’s great. Sista Beehive for some reason suggests that he start a dating school. Sista Laurel knows that he would have to issue everyone refunds.

I was watching the video of you singing Rocka My Soul, says Sista Beehive. I could have sworn I saw you poppin and trying to break it down. Alex is laughing hysterically. Some one once bet me that I couldn’t moon walk across the Tabernacle stage he says. We think he was trying to reverently take on that bet. But we’ll let you be the judge.

I saw a couple of choir members getting into it and bobbing a little says Sista Laurel. You know they like to move, he says. Any time we sing a spiritual or anything a little more ruckus, the other members always say to me, it makes us want to move. I think the choir is trying to appeal to a larger audience, a younger and bigger market. One of the managers said to me that they want to sell millions of records, they don’t want to just sell thousands. Speaking of the choir’s appeal, how does Motab fare with the Grammys, asks Sista Laurel. I know they have a Grammy, she says, how many?

Just the one he says, in 1959 for Battle Hymn of the Republic. We are shocked. Does the choir submit all their albums for nomination we ask? Yes they do he says. They actually submitted I Want Jesus to Walk with Me, which was one of the songs I did with the choir. That was heart warming to me. It was evident that they do want to appeal to a larger audience, of all the songs they could submit they sent a Negro Spiritual. We didn’t win anything for it, but it really meant something to me even though nothing happened.

Tell us some of your experiences traveling with the choir, Sista Beehive asks. You know there are people who come twenty to thirty miles with their families, some half-broke just to see the choir. There was a family who did that and then they drove to the next place we were performing. Many people do it. The choir’s response outside the State of Utah is very different, people turn up, and the closest they can get to the choir they will drive or fly to get there.

When I was a little older than sixteen I saw them in England. I only went because someone hooked me up with a ticket. I just didn’t think that me a kid who listened to Hip Hop and Motown would even connect with this music. Prior to seeing the choir my Bishop and everybody at church had been asking, Alex, are you going to go on a mission? I just couldn’t say yes to them, I had one foot in that world and one foot in the secular world. Well anyways, I went to the concert. And it changed me, I felt the spirit so strong, and I knew I was going on a mission. That’s why I tell people, don’t sweat, you’ll feel the spirit. It truly is the Lord’s choir. I’ve had the Spirit testify of that on many, many occasions. That’s why I’m still here. I have ADHD, I don’t stick to things for too long. Even my Mother says, Alex it has been three years and you are still in the choir. That’s a great testimony, says Sista Beehive, especially for those who say Mormons don’t musically sound like us, it lets them know that the spirit can still speak to you even through the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Who is in charge of teaching Motab rhythm and how to clap, asks Sista Laurel. No one he says laughing, it’s a free for all. Some get it and some don’t. So tell us, what is happening with your solo career, Sista Laurel says. Well, I like the way Sister Gladys Knight said it, “I want to bring a little more chocolate to the vanilla.” As members of the Church we deserve to have every style. If you go to an ice cream store you would be mad if you go in and they only serve one flavor. You would say I’m going to Baskin Robins where they have pistachio and rocky road, bubble gum, all that. We do deserve variety, that’s what I look forward to. I want to be a part of that store. I just want there to be some of my flavor. I’m not saying that I’m the answer. You know when I realized that, that I wasn’t the answer and started trying to be a part of the team, I felt the spirit more in my music and people felt the spirit more through my music.

Anyways, I love that Motown flavor Smokey Robinson and the Temptations, Motown that’s where I developed a love for music. So I did a Motown album, my original songs, just with that style and feel to it. Cause I get sick of the stuff that’s out there today. I wanted to do some good solid music, but the strangest thing happened to me when I was working on this album. I had a really strong impression to do a hymns album, I wasn't interested and I kept fighting the feeling. I thought I don’t want to do that, nobody has asked me to. I was doing the Motown album and I kept getting a feeling of guilt, so I finally went to the studio and chose some hymns. I had eight songs and I needed three more and I couldn’t think of what songs to do. I was just stuck there. I get a phone call from Elder Ballard. His secretary says, he wants to speak to you. I’m thinking, there's only two reasons an Apostle calls someone.... (to be continued) READ PART 2 HERE

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir will be singing Negro Spirituals during Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday, January 17, 2010. To find out more about how you can attend or listen to this broadcast visit: http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/info/matsw.

To Learn more about Alex Boye visit: http://www.alexboye.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/alexboye.music

Your Sistas in the Gospel, 

Sista Beehive and Sista Laurel

Read more...