I'm sure you felt the fabric of space-time tear just a little bit Friday night. It pulled back for a glimpse of some great old-fashioned soul music, as the completely soul-filled Otis Clay set up shop with Billy Price at the Palisades in McKeesport.

Clay is one of the old masters of an old music that happily lingers, even though its prime time has come and gone -- but with singers like Price still carrying the torch.

That's not to say that Clay has lost any of his fire. He exudes charm, style, energy, and most important, soul.

After Price and his band did an hour-plus opening set (making good use of Clay's fine backup singers Theresa Davis and Dianne Madison), Clay came out crackling and spent two joyfully soulful hours presenting a concert of what Mr. Price has accurately called America's classical music. Or as Clay was introduced at the Lucerne Blues Festival a few years ago -- "the voice of America."

Clay spent the evening begging, pleading and testifying his way through a torrent of soul classics: "When Hearts Grow Cold," "I Can Take You to Heaven Tonight," "I Just Wanna Testify," "When the Heart Grows Cold," and one of my all-time favorites (even though it was written by unlegendary soulman Kris Kristofferson*), "For the Good Times." Clay's reading is classic. If your heart hasn't gained weight by the end, you probably don't even have a soul.

Clay, at 66, seems to have the energy of two men of 33. The music flows with little effort, unless you count the effort it takes to make emotions flow like lonely teardrops.

But that's what the great singers like Otis Clay do. They rip the emotion from their heart and hang it out there for you to take into yours.

Maybe BlueNotes is getting a little overwrought. But I've always thought it was hard to overstate the value and appeal of music like this, since it works on such a heartfelt level. And it feels good, too. And you can dance to it.

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I don't mean to ignore Billy Price here. He's absorbed this music for years and gives it back to his audience with the same passion that his teachers had. His set Friday night was as strong and soulful as always, and he joined Clay to wrap up the night in a couple of songs that brought the best of both their worlds together. It's just that you can still see Billy locally and regularly. The Otis Clays happen less ands less often. And that's a shame.

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The evening was about more than just good music. On one hand, it's always disappointing to me when only a few hundred people in a city this size turn out to hear music like this. Shoot, we used to get that many at one good record hop.

On the other hand, it warms the cockles of BlueNotes' heart to realize that this music still engages and moves.

People were even dancing -- and many of them were actually touching one another. BlueNotes blushes at the thought. But he might be willing to support a Constitutional amendment that would require dancing to be defined as humans touching during the event.

Billy Price got it right during one slow-burning Clay number when he grabbed his wife Rebecca, and they danced close and slow in a manner that could get them arrested in some jurisdictions. The nuns surely would not have approved.

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* Apologies to Kris Kristofferson. Anyone who can write and sing all the great music he's written and sung surely must have genuine soul.