in fact, a lot of the churches he went to didn't partake in the kind of expressive singing that is most often associated with black American Christianity (remember that his dad was mostly affiliated with a kind of obscure Afro-Judaic sect)

i'm not saying that he had NO church in him whatsoever... it's been documented that he did do some church singing. but as i've argued before, his biggest influences came from the radio... particularly "guinea crooners" like Frank, Dino, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, and also from pop bluesmen like Big Joe Turner