But, its more than just music that makes this gospel choir special. These three dozen men and women are recovering from cocaine, heroin and alcohol abuse.

They are the addicts rehabilitation choir, and the music and the faith it embraces keep them focused on the war they wage each day to stay straight. ``When they sing, nobody knows the trouble I've seen. They feel it in their bones. Gospel music and recovery are both about struggle and both about overcoming,'' says Rev Reginald Williams, director of operations at the Addicts Rehabilitation Centre, the choir's sponsor.

``You have the lows of the basses and the highs of the sopranos, and inbetween you have a whole range of life,'' he says.

Rev Williams starts off the Wednesday morning concert at Harlem's Mount Moriah Baptist Church, stoking the audience before the first note from the choir. In the pews, they shout, sing and dance.

``Somebody ought to say, praise the Lord,'' shouts Rev Williams, and shouts come back from the packed pews. When he asks worshippers to count their blessings, they pop up to speak.

``My name is Roy,'' declares one man adding, ``and god has blessed me and delivered me from drugs.'' ``I'm grateful to God,'' says another, ``because he picked up all my broken pieces and made me whole.''

James Allen, the centre's founder and director, leads the choir. Forty years ago, this sharecropper's son put Lexington, Kentucky, and heroin addiction behind him and moved to Harlem. He joined a church and soon took over its programme for alcoholics and drug users.

With a federal grant and donated building, the programme eventually grew into the Addicts Rehabilitation Center,which now houses about 400 recovering drug addicts and several dozen aids patients. In the mid-1970s, Allen organised a small choir to help pay the bills, but he soon realised singing could bring in more than money. ``It gives them a sense of pride,'' he says. ``It gives them a sense ... that they have something to offer, they're not just hustling.'' Allen feels, the combination of faith and music is powerful.

The choir tours Europe several times a year and has sung at Lincoln Centre, as well as schools, churches and political rallies. Altogether, it gives about 200 performances each year.

Allen hopes the choir's high profile will send a message to the public. If beautiful singers are being lost to drugs, then maybe there are other skills and talents we can save,'' he says.

Many of the choir members had little experience before joining, but Allen claims he can train any voice. ``It's a serious commitment. Rehearsals and concerts can take up to 20 hours a week, and any lapse in sobriety meanssuspension,'' he explains.

``I can't get high at this point, because I know if I do I can't sing,'' says Benita Jones, a 32-year-old Soprano who gave up crack five years ago and is now a drug counselor. ``And I'd rather sing than get high.'' In a soft, shy voice, she recalls her old life.

``I was actually a bum,'' says Jones adding, ``All I did was get high.'' After months of urging, Jones checked into Allen's center and joined the gospel choir almost immediately. She now has her own apartment and custody of her 15-year-old son. Singing, she says, is her way of saying thank you.