Gavin Bryars - Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet

This late minimalist, 74-minute piece for orchestra and tape has had, and continues to have, a near-legendary effect on it's audience. It's the rare work created specifically to tug gently at one's heartstrings that actually does, and not subtly, either. It starts with a found recording of a homeless man singing a halting, simple melody looped over and over. Then Bryars builds and buttresses this with a full orchestra brought in incrementally, from the first carefully placed short pendulum string sweep to, 10 minutes from the end, the gravelly-voiced singer Tom Waits joins in. It's an obvious but effective work-appealing to all the basics of our emotional nervous system, but still tragically beautiful.

1) Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet: Tramp with Orchestra I (String Quartet)
2) Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet: Tramp with Orchestra II (Low Strings)
3) Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet: Tramp with Orchestra III (No Strings)
4) Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet: Tramp with Orchestra IV (Full Strings)
5) Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet: Tramp and Tom Waits with Full Orchestra
6) Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet: Coda: Tom Waits with High Strings