Hilton & Barbara Griswold 
Waukesha Expo Center
Waukesha, WI 
1 May 2010

Maybe he'd be reluctant to admit it, but Hilton Griswold has a tangential connection to the development of rock & roll. As the pianist James Blackwod and his Blackwood Brothers Quartet, he supported one of Elvis Presley's favorite Southern gospel acts. 

Griswold doesn't so much rock or roll as he does sway when he comes to the Waukesha Expo Center for concert rallies for the VCA America radio network and its lone TV station in nearby Milwaukee; he exudes too much happiness and doesn't communicate horniness that Presley and his rockabilly cat cohorts did. And it is on on at least that TV channel (if the show isn't syndicated, it should be) that Griswold has been singing and accompanying himself on his 88 keys for 25 years. Seeing as how he's currently 89, he is amazingly spry at that swaying.

At a previous VCY rally in the mid-1990s, Griswold brought out Blackwood and members of The Parsons Four, the latter of whom still sometimes accompany him on the show he's been hosting for the past 20 or so years, Inspiration Time. This time, wife Barbara shared the stage with him for one solo number and three duets with her other half. Her alto sounds to be aging without much diminished strength, but it is her hubby and his flexible tenor that allows him to break into the other three registers that really continues to impress. He recorded one album where he multi-tracked his voice to simulate a foursome.

VCY founder and regular radio presence Vic Eliason supplemented the evening's pianist with his pump organ. At least it looked like Eliason was pumping the instrument with his shod foot while his other one-sporting only a sock-hit bass notes to abet the chords and melodies he played with his fingers. The combination made for the kind of old-fashioned joyousness that has garnered Griswold over 26,000 letters from viewers since he began his regular TV presence (He asked Barbara how many, and the gal wouldn't lie, right?).

If 16 songs the course of two hours sounds skimpy, that doesn't take into account Hilton G.'s effusiveness as a raconteur. Whether relating the providence African-American songwriter Cleavant Derrick experienced from the Lord on his way to writing standards such as "Just A Little Talk With Jesus" or telling of how John Wayne contributed the title "It Is No Secret" to Stuart Hamblin after Hamblin told the actor his conversion story, Griswold had a tale for every nearly tune. 

The Griswolds have face time in more than one of the Bill and Gloria Gaither's videos that helped to sustain and expand Southern gospel audience. Otherwise, they're about as far from the mainstream of CCM while still providing a link to its development as, for instance, George Beverley Shea. If a teen-aged metal-loving friend of mine can appreciate  Old Man Griswold's ample musical gifting, it seems the church in this country still has some appreciation for at least the last couple centuries of its musical history. And that makes for a happy feeling, too. 

http://www.vcyamerica.tv/category/inspiration-time-with-hilton-griswold/ 

-Jamie Lee Rake