Sound Perimeter: Motherless Child

Today's Sound Perimeter listens to two different versions of “Motherless Child”, one by Jubilant Sykes, and the other by Cécile McLorin Salvant. Each rendition holds the same spiritual at its center, yet each opens a distinct emotional world. Sykes offers the song with warmth, grace, and a sense of outward offering, shaped by movement, conversation, and color. Salvant, in contrast, brings an intimate, prayer-like reading, transparent, inward, and quietly intense.Together, these performances reveal the many lives a single song can live.