Gospel — All Formats  

Gloriously soulful and passionate postwar gospel – one of the best ever compilations on the Tompkins Square label – shining a powerful light on rare African American church recordings, street corner sermon style numbers, choir backed testifying soul & blues, and straight up wonderful spiritual soul music all the way! The tunes range from the mid-to-late 1940s through the 1970s for the most part, with a few later recordings – and part of what's so inspiring about it is the disregard of formality to the program. It has crackly field recordings of congregations, reverends and choirs, back porch gospel blues, and more polished, but no less passionate recordings – the common thread being the raw, honest devotion and deeply felt soulfulness of it. Hats off to producer, compiler Mike McGonigal for putting together such an excellent set, and for his concise, but well done notes on each track, and to Tompkins Square for continuing to raise the bar! 80 tracks on 3 discs: "Peace In The Valley" by Rev Lonnie Farris, "Rock And Roll Sermon" by Elder Beck, "So Glad" by Rev Robert Ballinger, "Wasn't That A Mystery" by Madison County Senior Center Singers, "The Wicked Shall Cease From Troubling" by Nathaniel Rivers, "Jesus' Blood" by Golden Stars Of Greenwood, SC, "God's Mighty Hand" by Rev Utah Smith, "Fire Shed In My Bones" by Boyd Rivers, "Power Is In The Heart OF Man" by Brother & Sister W B Grate, "You Ought To Been There" by The BC Harmonizers, "Go Devil Go" by Madam Ira May Littlejohn and more.

Amazing sounds from the hinterland of gospel music – tracks pulled from vintage 45s issued by tiny local labels – often featuring artists who never cut a full album of work on their own! The tunes are nice and tight, and packed with plenty of soul – echoing some of the secular sounds of the time, which no doubt was something of the agenda for issuing the music on a 7" single – although other numbers are definitely gospel, and evoke more of a sermon-like approach! The package features an insert with notes on the music, and a nice hand-assembled cover – and titles include "He Got His Eyes On You" by Brother Sidney Harris, "Jesus Is Living Today" by Linston Triplett, "I Heard A Prayer (parts 1 & 2)" by Elijah Thurston, "He Will Fix It" by Sam Williams, "All Wrap Up In One" by Otis Wright, and "Send The Holy Ghost" by Brother Clark & His Trio.

An unexpectedly great batch of funky gospel tunes from Brother Vernard Johnson – most of which are done with a choppy little groove that goes way beyond the usual spiritual bag! Johnson plays sax on all numbers, and is often working alongside vocalists as well – but the main attraction to our ears is the burning rhythms on the tunes, which often have a fair bit of Texas funk in the mix! A surprising number of these tracks actually have some nice breaks – a real surprise for a gospel record – and even when the vocals kick in, things are still plenty darn righteous and soulful – a style that we're always looking for when crate-digging for 70s gospel albums, but which is always hard to find! Titles include "I Love To Praise His Holy Name", "I Surrender All", "Good To Me", "Soul Metamorphosis", "Awesome God", "Thank You Lord", "Soon & Very Soon", and "What Is This".

Rare hillbilly gospel, bluegrass and Good Word treasures in other styles from the 30s onward to around the mid 70s (though skewing largely to the period between) – great stuff from a couple recognizable acts and many more that are fresh to our eyes and years! Where The Soul Of Man Never Dies features both fun and more profoundly righteous numbers alike by The Delmore Brothers, Rev Harold Smith, Curt & Faye Bartmess, Blue Sky Boys and many more. Includes "Dust On The Bible" by The Blue Sky Boys, "Where The Soul Of Man Never Dies" by The Anglin Twins, "No Drunkard Can Enter There" by The Delmore Brothers, "Joy Bells In My Soul" by Charlie Monroe's Boys", "I Want To Rest" by Brother Claude Ely, "Electricity" by Jimmy Murphy, "Set Your Watch" by Curt & Faye Bartmess, "Crying Holy Unto The Lord" by Martha Carson and more.

Eight soulful brothers of the Luckett family – all coming together here in a wonderful gospel set from the 70s! The harmonies are tremendous, and often balanced with great leads from Rev LC Luckett – creating the kind of interplay you might get in the front of a church, yet given a lot more soulful focus for the album – often with a vibe that takes us back to soulful interplay from rootsier records of the 60s! The album's a tremendous one – the sort of obscure gospel set that definitely gets you digging for more spiritual sides – and a key illustration that many male groups of this nature were almost more soul than some of their secular contemporaries. Titles include "Just Moving On", "Around This Altar", "Joy When I Think About", "Help Me To Carry On", and "Where He Leads Me".

More interesting than you might think – given that there's a nice chunk of "jazz version" material in the middle!