Odd question/request (Gospel Music)

[CopperheadLXXIX]

Okay, so a good friend of mine at work plays piano for a small church. He's looking to expand though with some more musicians. He knows I play bass, so he asked me if I would like to get together and see if we might be able to work out a few songs, just the two of us for now. I agreed.

Some disclosure:

I've never played gospel in my life. In fact, I'm not even Christian, I'm an agnostic. (My friend is aware of this) but I do love learning new things, and will admit, having been in churches several times despite my beliefs (or lack thereof) an active and happy congregation can be contagious. I'm also a firm believer of when in Rome...
I also explained to him that right now my main bass is a 12ver, which he said was fine as he is open to new sounds/ideas.

So here are my questions/concerns:

I'm a rocker and pedal addict, so naturally my board is filled with things I wouldn't use (distortion, fuzz, synth, etc.) but would some light compression and maybe even a little analog chorus be appropriate?

Has anyone ever worked with JUST a piano player in this context or any for that matter, and did it work well?

And finally, can someone recommend some good and fun gospel standards (I'm in the Southeast if that matters) that work well with bass so I can get a head start? Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions!

[Torch7]

Originally Posted by CopperheadLXXIX

I'm a rocker and pedal addict, so naturally my board is filled with things I wouldn't use (distortion, fuzz, synth, etc.) but would some light compression and maybe even a little analog chorus be appropriate?

Has anyone ever worked with JUST a piano player in this context or any for that matter, and did it work well?

And finally, can someone recommend some good and fun gospel standards (I'm in the Southeast if that matters) that work well with bass so I can get a head start? Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions!

If you could talk to your friend and gets some suggestions that that would probably be the best way to figure where you need to go for this head start. Gospel is such a generic term now-a-days, there are many sub-genres, that are literally night and day different.

At my church on any given Sunday we can play 4 or 5 different types of songs. From Christian Alternative, to Traditional Black Gospel and a few sub-genres in between