The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, The Birthday of a King | Music Lifts 🎶 🏋

In the 47^th edition of Music Lifts (2024), we’re uplifted by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, featuring Susan Pettrey, performing, “The Birthday of a King.”

Welcome to Music Lifts 🎶 🏋, a column highlighting songs that encourage, inspire, and uplift the spirit; songs exuding fortitude, positivity, and resolve, even in the face of adversity.  Featured songs aren’t genre-specific; songs may or may not be faith-based. The goal is for these songs to make you feel better – be LIFTED to new heights!  So, for the 47^th edition of Music Lifts 🎶 🏋 (2024), we highlight “The Birthday of a King” as performed by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir featuring Susan Pettrey.

“In the little village of Bethlehem, / There lay a Child one day, / And the sky was bright with a holy light / O’er the place where Jesus lay.” Those poetic, Biblical lyrics speak to the birthday of a King named J-E-S-U-S. The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir marvelously performs “The Birthday of a King”, the eighth track from their 2001 album, Light of the World.  Susan Pettrey, a minister and musician, sings lead on the fantastic, underrated William Harold Neidlinger (1863 – 1924) classic. Neidlinger was a composer, conductor, organist, and music educator.  Supported by a marvelous arrangement (piano and orchestra) with a sweet harmonic progression, Pettrey and The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir uplift the spirit in the Christmas season. Most importantly, they highlight the true reason for the season!

The second verse of “The Birthday of a King” continues to tell the greatest Christmas story ever told.  “From the manger bed what a path has led,” Pettry sings reverently, continuing, “What a perfect, holy way.”  The centerpiece is the chorus, which confirms the sheer awesomeness and jubilance of the Savior being born:

“Alleluia! O how the angels sang

Alleluia! How it rang!

And the sky was bright with the holy light,

‘Twas the birthday of a King.”

Pettrey and choir ‘bring it’ throughout “The Birthday of a King.” Numerous key modulations help to amplify the spirit.  Also, given the slow tempo, Pettrey and the choir ‘milk’ the long notes, amplifying the significance of this holy event.  The authenticity with which The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sings is indisputable, particularly near the end where the song is at its most dynamic before bringing things back down. “The Birthday of a King” is a sublime Christmas song that deserves far more recognition.  This rendition by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir is celestial.  There is also another superb recording by The Tabernacle Choir led by Kelli O’Hara.

The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir // Light of the World // Brooklyn Tabernacle Music // 2001

The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, The Birthday of a King: Music Lifts 🎶 🏋 No. 47 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Brooklyn Tabernacle Music; Monstera Production, Qamar Rehman, RDNE Stock Project, Thomas Ronveaux, Wolrider YURTSEVEN from Pexels; OpenClipart-Vectors, Quốc Hùng Hầu from Pixabay]