“I've been thrown out of some of the best churches,” comments the irrepressible Thomas A. Dorsey, age 83, the “father” of gospel music and the focus of George T. Nierenberg's highly acclaimed documentary, Say Amen, Somebody. Along with Mother Willie Mae Ford Smith, whose vitality at age 77 is awesome to watch, Dorsey chronicles the Depression-era birth of gospel music, a melding of jazz and blues with sacred music that was for years fought by black churches, but embraced by the community. Smith and Dorsey's protegés--the Barrett Sisters, the O'Neal Twins and others--are captured in spirited performance in the film, which makes no pretense to objectivity or thoroughness, but is rather a loving tribute by an outsider to the exuberance of gospel music. Director Nierenberg (No Maps on My Taps) explores the unique lives of gospel performers--the family conflicts brought on by the women's devotion to their work, their attitudes toward gospel music's changing commercial milieu--but, as Village Voice reviewer Carol Cooper notes, “good news in song is the film's transcendent feature.”