This piece is simple and powerful. Producer Kerry Seed introduces us to a very charismatic deacon Randy Green, and after rolling a few brief and judicious pieces of tape that give us the requisite background on Green, our producer invites us to sit in on a live presentation from the venerable deacon in front of a large crowd at Portland, Maine's, 2006 Martin Luther King, Jr., Gospel Concert.

As listeners, we get the privileged feeling of eavesdropping on a momentous event. We can hear the deacon playing to his audience, provoking spirited reactions, and basically demonstrating what charisma is all about. Deacon Green proceeds to rev up his audience for a solid five minutes. And then the singing begins. And that's when we realize what this piece is all about.

You know, we radio producers can all too easily get caught up in wanting to make everything punchier, faster, always with more and more technical bells and whistles to hold our listeners' attention. But this story reminds us that hearing a simple recording of a meaningful performance, as it happened, uninterrupted and unmediated, can be as powerful as anything else we're likely to hear on the radio.