Black Swamp
Arts Festival fans wereconverted to a belief in the beauty of Sacred Steel back in 2005 whenCalvin Cooke, an
elder in the genre, played a Sunday afternoon.Since then Cooke has returned to town several times. The
festival hasalso hosted The Campbell Brothers and most recently Sacred Steelupstarts The Lee Boys.This year
promises a Sacred Steel summit session when The Slide Brothers hit the stage.The band features a foursome of
steel guitar — Cooke, Darick and ChuckCampbell and one of the legends of the music, Aubrey Ghent, the
nephewof the style’s founder, Willie Eason, who with his brother Tromanbrought the steel guitar into the
church in the 1930s.The band was assembled by Sacred Steel’s biggest star, Robert Randolph,but having these
musicians play together is nothing new. They’ve beenjamming the gospel at House of God conventions for
years.Still Ghent said getting them all together in this ensemble “brought about a special spiritual
feeling.”Ghent said in a recent telephone interview from Nashville, Tenn. That his friendship with Cooke
goes back to the early 1960s.Slide guitar, Cooke told the Sentinel before his 2005 appearance, was a more
Hawaiian style steel sound at first.Ghent and Cooke were among the young generation, who were
incorporatingmore popular rhythms and harmonies into the church’s music.It was asound that appealed not just
to the Church of God faithful, but tosecular listeners of all stripes. The elders were jealous of
theattention. Ghent said when he was a youngster he couldn’t play outsideat school assemblies and such.
“That’s the way of my parents,” he said.“When I was kid they were really strict.”He’d started playing at 6,
and it was his grandfathers, both deeply involved in the ministry who bought him his first lap
steel.Histalent was discovered by those outside the church in 1992. He was in aMiami music store to try out
the instruments. “I messed around with itand they discovered they could I could play,” Ghent said.Soon he
was playing festivals and shows throughout the state.TheSlide Brothers, following the path blazed by
Randolph, Ghent, Cooke andthe Campbells, have taken the music to major international musicfestivals. The
Slide Brothers appeared on the Experience Hendrix Tour,and covered a couple of the rock guitarist’s
classics. Those aren’t inthe band’s regular repertoire, Ghent said. “It was for that time.”Instead the band
focuses on its core repertoire of rousing hymnody thatfor decades they’ve been rocking for the Lord. The
Slide Brothersperform Saturday at 6:20 p.m. on the Main Stage and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. on the Family Stage.