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The God Groove:
A Blues Journey to Faith
by David Ritz
c.2019, Atria
$26.00 / $35.00 Canada
243 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
One thing leads to another.
Isn’t that how it goes? You start somewhere and a door is
opened. You enter that door and see a window. The window
takes you elsewhere and each new place teaches you something
different. Isn’t that the way life is – and in the new book
The God Groove by David Ritz, isn’t that the
way faith is?
Growing up in New York City, David Ritz fell in love with
music. Finding it was “as easy as walking down Fifty-Second
Street,” or just to his parents’ living room: Ritz’s father
loved classical music and shared his passion with his son.
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For Ritz, though, jazz was the thing. It was always there in
New York but when he was a teen, his family moved to Dallas,
where hearing jazz meant a lengthy search and at least a
“ninety-minute bus trip.” One day, in his quest for good
music, he stumbled upon an open door from which emanated
tight harmonies and soaring voices.
He’d found a black church, but he was reluctant to enter.
Though his family had never been all that religious, the
fact remained that Ritz was white and Jewish. God was a
distant thought. Jesus was someone he barely knew about.
And so it continued through most of his life, until he was a
married father of twin girls. He was 32 years old then, and
desperate for a career change so, because he’d “become
obsessed with Ray Charles’ voice,” Ritz pestered Charles to
let him write the singer’s biography. That led to an
opportunity with Marvin Gaye and an introduction to Aretha
Franklin, who led Ritz to another jazz-and-blues singer and
another and another. As each person sat down with him in
interviews, the conversation often turned to religion, God,
and the love inherent in Christianity.
As he was ministered to, Ritz began to listen, and he began
to think. He started to see Christ in a different way, and
he visited churches. And yet, he still wasn’t ready to call
himself a Christian…
For a lot of reasons, The God Groove is a challenge
to read.
The name-dropping is first on the list: author David Ritz
worked with many premiere performers and they’re all in this
book, which is impressive, initially, but becomes like
background noise after awhile. Alas, those star-stories get
tangled up in Ritz’ own tale, which can drown out his
fascinating memoir; and the back-and-forth,
does-he-or-doesn’t-he religious argument also goes on too
long.
And yet – there’s an underlying personal change of direction
that Ritz allows to run just beneath the surface of his
story, as he meets flawed people and confesses his own
flaws, including drug use and infidelity related to
bisexuality. At the risk of spoiling, there’s a happy ending
available, but getting there might be tough.
Readers who are questioning their faith may find takeaways
here. Jazz fans might also like what they see but if you’re
neither, you may struggle. The God Groove isn’t
awful, you might be led to just put it aside.
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