HOFFSTACK PLAYLIST #5 - Dixie Hummingbirds, "Ezekiel Saw The Wheel"

I support any religious testimonial that includes the words "flippity flop."

This is glorious Sunday morning and I hope you have 93 seconds for the redemption of your eternal soul. If not that, at least a spare moment to listen to a really great song.

“Ezekiel Saw the Wheel” is probably the catchiest of the African American Spirituals, and if you hit play above you’ll soon see why. I’m not 100% sure who Ezekiel was or how he saw the wheel—maybe he worked at a used car lot?—but when The Dixie Hummingbirds sing it, you feel it.

There are many versions of this song floating around out there. Harry Belafonte recorded it, John Lee Hooker recorded it, noted New Jerseyan Paul Robeson recorded it, Woody Guthrie recorded it (he gets a pass) and I see that “The VeggieTales” recorded it for their 25 Favorite Bible Songs! album but I refuse to listen to that.

Louis Armstrong’s version, on his splendid Louis and the Good Book collection from 1958 is a true marvel, with Pops concluding “oh, Zeke! My man Zeke! Yes, indeed, ol’ Zeke was wailin’!” which is further evidence, as if anyone required it, that Louis Armstrong was the coolest guy who ever lived.

The Dixie Hummingbirds were a gospel quartet first formed in Greenville, South Carolina in 1928, though by 1941 they were based in Philadelphia. The founder James B. Davis died in 2007 at the age of 90, and their secret weapon, lead vocalist Ira B. Tucker, joined in 1938 at the age of 13. He passed in 2008 at the age of 83. Most of their work was not a cappella, despite my choice of “Ezekiel.”

They had a bit of a revival when Paul Simon deployed them to sing backup on “Loves Me Like a Rock” in 1973. They then recorded their own version that is approximately 785,000 times better (it won a Grammy for best gospel recording.)

This will sound like I am making it up, but one time, in the 1990s, I was in Newark and heard music coming from a church. I opened the door and it was The Dixie Hummingbirds in concert. I sat down—no one asked me for a ticket—and caught the last few minutes of the show. This sounds like I am recounting a dream, but I swear to you on a stack of gospel 78s that this is true. Miracles happen every day in Newark.

The Dixie Hummingbirds recorded “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel” several times. The first time was in 1947, a B-side to dirge “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” (Van Morrison’s version of that one will one day make the HOFFSTACK PLAYLIST.)

The version of “Ezekiel” up top, the first I heard, comes from a 1998 compilation and I believe (but have not verified) that it was recorded in 1974. Here’s a live version of The Dixie Hummingbirds performing “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel,” also from 1974.