Gospel Memories: Sunday, February 4

Hello, gospel music mavens -- the next live broadcast of "Gospel Memories" will be this Sunday, February 4 from 3:00 to 7:30 a.m. Central Time US on Chicago's WLUW 88.7. Listen live anywhere in the world via the real-time webcast at www.wluw.org.

Highlights of the February 4 Broadcast:

-- February 2007 marks the 100th birthday of Roberta Evelyn Martin (photo above). Roberta organized the original Roberta Martin Singers from a group of teenagers in Ebenezer MB Church's junior chorus. Her songwriting, arranging and piano genius created a graceful, dignified ensemble sound that literally transformed the genre. Each of the Roberta Martin Singers was a star in his or her own right. Roberta left this earth in 1969, but her legacy yet lives.

We'll feature original recordings of the Roberta Martin Singers from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s as our way of saying "Happy Birthday, Roberta!"




-- Conversation with Gayle F. Wald, author of the recently released Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-And-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Beacon Press). Wald has written the first-ever biography of the guitar-slinging songster who exploded out of the COGIC church and took the gospel -- and RnB -- world by storm. Listen to Professor Wald and hear original recordings by Sister Tharpe at 6:00 a.m.

-- This week's opening "Lord's Prayer" comes to us from the First Church of Deliverance, Chicago, where Bishop Otto Houston, III is pastor. "The Lord's Prayer" is a new recording of former minister of music Julia Mae Kennedy's masterpiece arrangement of the Albert Hay Malotte version. In digital CD sound, this recording captures the bone-chilling sound of the FCD Choir in ways the old vinyl could never do.

-- Before they were famous: a recording by Wallace Williams and the Howard University Gospel Choir, with then-student Richard Smallwood soloing; a 7 year-old Jimmy Moss -- now J Moss -- singing on his family's Bilesse label.

-- An acetate of an unknown male artist from Ecorse, Michigan's Revival Records vault (courtesy of Rob Sevier)

-- The return of "From the Vault," featuring Jessie May Hill (1927), Golden Eagle Gospel Singers (1940) and the Williams Jubilee Singers (1920s).

-- Preacher Feature: Brother Esmond Patterson: "Wake Up Nation" (1965) - aired at 5 a.m.

-- Plus music from legends and pioneers such as:
Vernon Oliver Price
Rev. Cleophus Robinson
Doris Akers
Bishop Clarence Haddon of Detroit
The Kelly Brothers
Rev. James L. Lofton and his Church of Our Prayer Choir
Harmonizing Four
Mass Choir - National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, feat. Sallie Martin (1981)
Silvertones of Cincinnati
James Cleveland and the Cleveland Singers
Edna Gallmon Cooke
Greater Metropolitan Church of Christ, feat. Doris Whitman
Heavenly Kings
Rev. Utah Smith
...and more!

So tune in and turn on to "Gospel Memories" -- a lightning bolt of inspiration headed straight for your soul!

TBGB Reviews Old Time Camp Meeting Songs - Volume III

Old Time Camp Meeting Songs – Volume III
Rev. Timothy Flemming, Sr.
God’s Strength Records 2007

Buoyed by the success of Volumes I and II, the prolific Rev. Timothy Flemming, Sr. has released yet a third volume of Old Time Camp Meeting Songs.

Recorded live at the Macon City Auditorium in Macon, Georgia, Old Time Camp Meeting Songs - Volume III reminds us that there was a soul-stirring sound in the church long before gospel music took hold. Rev. Flemming takes the listener way, way, way back, leading old fashioned, largely unaccompanied call-and-response congregational hymn and spiritual singing. Think Alan Lomax’s Library of Congress field recordings, but in stereo. The recording is also reminiscent of Dr. C.J. Johnson’s classic “Old Time Prayer Meeting” LPs for Savoy. Dr. Johnson's albums were recorded in the 1960s, but the content was rooted in the 1860s.

In particular, Rev. Flemming's version of “Old Ship of Zion” brings to mind Rev. C.L. Franklin’s popular 1950s 2-part single of the spiritual for J-V-B and Chess. As with Rev. Franklin’s recording, Rev. Flemmons preaches and leads the congregation in a tsunami wave of sound punctuated by participants losing themselves in the Spirit.

Of course, I shook my head in disbelief at the CD cover, depicting “The Little Man with the Big Voice” wearing what can only be described as 19th Century country attire, but if anyone can get away with it, Rev. Flemmings can. His point – that this is “little wooden Baptist church on the hill” style music – is evident the second the singing starts.

Allen & Allen & Allen & Allen & Allen & Allen

CD Review:
Mega 3 Collections
Light Records
www.lightrecords.com

Box sets have been a music industry staple for some time now. Not to be left out, Light Records added their own variation on the multi-disc set to the mix a few years ago by launching a series called the Mega 3 Collection. The 3-CD packs are reissues of three gospel or Christian rock albums from a Light Records artist’s back catalog. It’s an economical way to update your CD collection with items that may have eluded you. The liner notes are all but nonexistent, basically a track list with photos of the CDs reissued, but hey, you’re buying it for the music, right?

One Mega 3 Collection packages previously released material from the ‘90s by Bruce Allen and Allen T.D. Wiggins – better known as Allen & Allen. Allen & Allen play pleasant, inspirational smooth jazz, with an occasional gospel vocal (such as by the Christianaires’ Paul Porter) thrown in for good measure. Their 1996 Come Sunday CD added a layer of toughness to their otherwise mellow sound. Shades of hip-hop and classic jazz make this the finest of the three disks in the reissue package.

Mega 3 Collections are also available for vintage artists such as Andrae Crouch, Commissioned, and the acclaimed New Jersey Mass Choir with Donnie Harper. The New Jersey Mass Choir set includes their 1986 Look Up and Live, a title that turned prophetic fifteen years later, as the CD sports a photo of the choir with NYC’s World Trade Center in the background. The Walter Hawkins Mega 3 Collection includes three volumes of the popular Love Alive series. It’s what you need to get your regular Tramaine fix (though there is even a Mega 3 Collection dedicated to Tramaine’s solo work).

All in all, you can’t go wrong with these economical sets of Light fare in a genre of music for which box sets are still relatively rare.

Fire Destroys Home of Gospel Singer Ricky Dillard

by Sheilah Belle of The Belle Report (www.thebellereport.net):

Fire early Tuesday, January 16, 2007 destroyed a home belonging to gospel singer Ricky Dillard, who was out of town.

The six-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot house was "completely burned to the ground, from my understanding," said Dillard's manager, William Bogle. "It was certainly unfortunate but, more importantly, I'm glad he wasn't in it."

Firefighters were called to the home around 3 a.m. and found the house already fully engulfed, said DeKalb County Fire Department Capt. Eric Jackson. No one was in the home and there were no injuries, he said. Bogle said Dillard was in New York on Tuesday.

He said he had spoken with Dillard by phone and described Dillard as "distraught" about the fire. Bogle said Dillard hadn't planned to return to Atlanta until February, but would likely come back because of the fire. "I'm assuming he will make a trip there," Bogle said.

Dillard, originally from Chicago, bought the six-bedroom, 5,000-square foot house about three years ago, his manager said.

Bogle said Dillard's awards and film footage of his choir's performances were in the Atlanta house. "Nineteen years of his choir history has been destroyed," Bogle said.

Some of Dillard's best-known songs include "More Abundantly" and "The Holy Place."

Bogle said the Grammy-nominated gospel singer was in New York on Tuesday and was distraught over the fire. He said Dillard hadn't planned to return to Atlanta until February, but would likely come back sooner because of the fire.

Dillard recently recorded live in Toronto, Canada on Saturday, January 20th at the Rhema Christian Ministries of Ontario Inc. The artist, who is best known for his unparalleled excitement and showmanship, had made plans to bring his level of excellence to the North for this highly anticipated concert event.

Attached is a picture from video of the fire, shown on WSB-TV, Atlanta, GA.

Let’s keep our brother in prayer.

TBGB Pick of the Week: January 22, 2007

“The Lord’s Prayer”
First Church of Deliverance Choir
and Bishop Otto T. Houston, III
On the CD God Can
F.C.D. 2006

Former First Church of Deliverance Minister of Music Julia Mae Kennedy's dramatic arrangement of Albert Hay Malotte’s “The Lord’s Prayer” finally gets the audio engineering it deserves.

“The Lord’s Prayer” closes First Church’s latest project, God Can, in a triumphant explosion of sound. A lullaby of synthesized strings opens the song, but is soon clobbered by a bone-chilling tonic chord played on the Hammond organ. Since First Church pioneered the Hammond organ as accompaniment to gospel music in 1939, it's no wonder the instrument commands such a presence in this venue.

Unlike its lo-fi predecessors, on which the arrangement’s dynamics were no match for mortal grooves, resulting in distortion and muddy harmonies, this digital recording of "The Lord's Prayer" enables current Music Director and organist Fred Nelson, III to take the choral and instrumental arrangements way over the top. The result is a marvelously clear surge of sound that threatens to lift the roof right off the Art Deco-era church as the prayer heads heavenward.

To be played at maximum volume.

First-Ever Sister Rosetta Tharpe Biography Now Available

Shout, Sister, Shout!
The Untold Story of Rock-And-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Gayle F. Wald
Beacon Press 2007
www.shoutsistershout.net

Despite Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s celebrated position as a gospel music pioneer, no author has taken on the role of her biographer until now.

Thanks to Gayle Wald, Professor of English at George Washington University, the world can now read about the “swinger of spirituals” in greater detail than ever before. Shout, Sister, Shout! is the definitive portrait of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a woman who emerged from rural poverty and the Pentecostal church to alter the sound and venue options of African American sacred folk music for all time. In the process, she inspired legions of soon-to-be rock-and-rollers.

It’s all here: Sister Tharpe’s journey from her birthplace of Cotton Plant, Arkansas to the frenetic Black Metropolis of Chicago’s south side, to Miami and then to the Big Apple; her debut on the stages of the Cotton Club and Café Society; the acclaim she received as a participant in John Hammond’s legendary “From Spirituals to Swing” concert; her Decca recordings and famed 1951 wedding ceremony, viewed by 20,000 fans; to her later years when the live audience shrank to pathetic proportions.

An enjoyable read, Shout, Sister, Shout! is told with a journalist’s eyes and ears for the fascinating and the academic’s attention to thoroughness. I especially admire Wald for having the courage to share a three-dimensional version of Sister Tharpe – a person with a multi-faceted lust for life – rather than dilute the complex struggles of an artist who lived in a time when being black and a woman were already two unfortunate strikes against her.

Wald also weaves into the narrative the stories of those who worked with and for Sister Tharpe, including Marie Knight, the Rosettes, Harmonizing Four, and of course Tharpe’s evangelist mother and ever-present companion, Katie Bell Nubin. The story makes vivid the rough-and-tumble days of gospel music’s Golden Era (1945-65).

The book includes many unforgettable vignettes. For example, you’ll read about Sister Tharpe as a child singing for loose change at Chicago’s famed Maxwell Street Market; the ugliness of wealthy whites sitting in the balcony of Miami Temple COGIC and tossing money down at the Saints during their worship service; and the staged celebration of the singer’s third marriage, when finding the groom wasn’t about securing Mr. Right, it was about finding Mr. Good Enough. It’s a story that all aspiring musicians should become familiar with as they plan their own journey from obscurity to omnipresence.

Shout, Sister, Shout! is compulsory reading not only for mavens of the gospel sound, but also for rock aficionados who seek the genesis of rock guitar as displayed in the axe-wielding of Chuck Berry, the British Invasion groups, and AC/DC’s Angus Young. Perhaps Wald’s book will even inspire the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to induct Sister Rosetta Tharpe into the legion of artists already so honored, who learned their craft from hearing her recordings and watching her performances. Mahalia's in the Hall of Fame, and God Bless Mahalia, she deserves the honor but Tharpe could rock circles around her. Ah, one can only hope.

Gospel Music Tributes to Martin Luther King

The larger record buying public might think Dion's lachrymose "Abraham, Martin and John" was one of the few songs recorded to pay tribute to Martin Luther King. However, the black gospel music community knows there are more tributes and references to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in gospel music than for any other political or social leader in history except, of course, for Jesus.

Most of the recordings were issued after King's assassination in 1968. Columbia repackaged a handful of Mahalia Jackson recordings as a dedication album: Mahalia Jackson Sings the Best-Loved Hymns of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Columbia). Bandleader Ben Branch and the Operation Breadbasket (now Operation PUSH) Orchestra and Choir recorded The Last Request (Chess) in posthumous fulfillment of Dr. King's request that Branch lead "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at a rally in Memphis, while the Southern Christian Leadership Conference leaders were in town for the Garbage Workers protest. As Rev. Jesse Jackson noted, "Until the making of this album, the orchestra was never able to fulfill Dr. King's request."

Though there are many, many more than listed here, below are a few gospel singles that pay tribute to the civil rights leader:

All-Star Gospel Singers - "I believe Martin Luther King made it" (Em-Jay)
Church of Love Choir - "Martin Luther King" (Glori)
Church of Love's Children - "Martin Luther King (Glori)
Echos of Harmony - "The legacy of Martin Luther King" (G & PG)
Rev. Franklin Fondel & Fondel Gospel Singers - "Tribute to Martin Luther King" (Cross & Crown)
Rev. Claude Jeter - "In memory of Dr. Martin Luther King" (Hob)
Bro. Will Hairston - "Rev. King had a hard time" (Knowles)
Bro. Will Hairston - "March on to Montgomery" (Knowles)
Reuben Henry - "Three little boys: Robert, Martin Luther, and John" (Natural)
Reuben Henry - "Non violence" (Natural)
Hudson Chorale - "I have a dream" (Amanda)
Bobby Jones & New Life - "Martin" (Myrrh)
Mrs. Odell Knox & Famous South Land Singers - "The faith of Martin Luther King" (Designer)
Mrs. Odell Knox & Famous South Land Singers - "I have a dream" (Designer)
Loving Sisters - "Tribute to Dr. King" (Peacock)
Norfleet Brothers - "Story of Martin Luther King (part I)" (Rush)
Norfleet Brothers - "Story of Martin Luther King (part II)" (Rush)
Selma Gospel Singers - "Ode to Dr. King" (Selma Gospel Singers)
Sons of David - "March on, Dr. Martin Luther King" (Silver Cross)
Bill Spivery & Sons of Truth - "The non-violent man" (Dee-Jay)
John Ford & the Gospel All Stars - "Sad so sad (A tribute to Dr. King)" (Zone)
Thomas Walton & Blind Disciples - "Ode to Martin Luther King" (Roadshow)
Elizabeth D. Williams - "Sleep on, Dr. King, sleep on" (Crown Limited)

Pay tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by playing or singing a gospel song today.

TBGB Pick of the Week: January 15, 2007

“Worldwide God”
Prenestine Williams-Porter
Motor City Praise Records 2006
www.motor-city-records.com

Prenestine Williams-Porter called on the estimable talents of fellow Detroiter “Queen of Quartet” Evelyn Turrentine Agee and Queen of Gospel Albertina Walker to accompany her on “Worldwide God,” the radio single and title track from her full-length project for James Render's Motor City Praise Records.

Though the rhythm track is modernistic, the singing is fiercely traditional, as one would expect from the members of this trio. The ladies make a superb trio, too, taking turns at call-and-response with a choir, and providing a litany of the various places on the map where Jesus is present.

"Worldwide God" is ideal for radio spins, especially in the cities sung about on the single.

Prenestine is the daughter of the Senior Pastor of Williams Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, a vocal music teacher for the Detroit Public School system, and has been singing for more than twenty years in Detroit as a soloist and member of various groups.

Essential Gospel – Classic Recordings: No. 141

“Troubled”
James Cleveland and the Cleveland Singers
From Savoy LP MG14211
1968/69

If life is a ball game, as Wynona Carr sang, then James Cleveland was life’s great utility player.

James was a creative composer, director, keyboardist, producer, preacher, m.c., and vocalist – whether solo, with a choir, or with a group. He even organized a namesake group, the Cleveland Singers, which was patterned, like so many other groups, after Roberta Martin’s aggregation of top talent.

It was with one of the several iterations of Cleveland Singers personnel that James recorded “Troubled,” the musical equivalent of a relaxing soak in a bubble bath. I am not certain who the baritone lead singer is; it’s not James, nor is it Gene Viale and I doubt it's Roger Roberts. If anyone knows, holla back.

UPDATE: TBGB's good friend and former Cleveland Singer Gene Viale believes the baritone lead to be Clyde Brown. The song is a Doris Akers composition.

Lyrically, “Troubled” follows the theology of the spiritual: the singer concludes that Trouble will not leave his doorstep, i.e., there’s no salvation on earth, but he’s okay with that: there’s a better doorstep awaiting him in the hereafter. Musically, “Troubled” is quiet and introspective, much like Charles Watkins’ “Heartaches,” which the Cleveland Singers recorded a few years earlier, with Viale (who brought "Heartaches" to the group) handling lead duties.

I suspect “Troubled” was never released as a gospel single because of its length (a little long for the 7 inch records of the day), but also because another song from the album, "Free at last," made more sense to release: after all, in 1969, Dr. King's assassination was fresh and raw in everyone's minds and hearts.

In addition, "Troubled" could almost pass for a jazz or pop ballad, which would have befuddled gospel announcers of the day. Regardless, music is music, and James Cleveland made many fine examples of it, as evidenced here. A Cleveland masterpiece, one of many.

NOTE: Watch TBGB in the coming months for reissues of Bob Marovich's earliest "Essential Gospel" essays, originally written between 1996 and 2000, and published on a website that is now defunct.

TBGB Reviews...Still Standing

Still Standing
Bishop Paul S. Morton
Light Records/Tehillah Music Group 2006
www.fullgospelbaptist.org

Still Standing is a collective sigh of relief and exultation set to music and lyrics, recorded a fragile year after Hurricane Katrina and the levee breach destroyed Bishop Paul S. Morton’s flagship Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church in New Orleans. The water also ravaged members’ homes; destroyed their personal possessions; injured and killed men, women, and children; and scattered many of the 20,000-strong congregation across the land and country.

While making the CD was therefore a cathartic and emotionally compulsory enterprise for Bishop Morton and his church, it is as much Kurt Carr’s project as Morton’s. The former produced the CD, wrote most (and arranged all) of the songs, played keyboards, and lent his own vocals as well as those of the Kurt Carr Studio Crew.

Carr explained to the assembly that he wanted to do something to help Katrina victims, and Morton’s call to produce this project was therefore timely. Carr added that his objective was not to write about the storm or about pain, but about redemption, and he succeeds in doing that. At the same time, storm and pain were not far from the minds and hearts of the flock. For the first hour or so, you could feel the raw sorrow hanging heavily like humidity above the motivational lyrics and up-tempo singing.

Two-thirds through the project, however, guest artist Tramaine Hawkins helped empty the emotional floodgates by shouting herself happy on Walter Hawkins’ 1980-vintage “Holy One.” The musicians responded by launching into gospel’s trademark frenetic instrumental vamp, the musical signal that the Holy Spirit has entered the house.

While the project’s opening title track, “I’m Still Standing,” is a high energy, shouting testimony worthy of a radio edit version, the most musically interesting performance on this 78-plus minute production is the church workout, “We Made It.” The choir cleverly interpolates “Leaning on the Everlasting Arm” in the song’s bridge, while Hack Bartholomew sounds the trumpet and his fellow musicians take everyone on all-too-brief excursions into gospel zydeco, New Orleans-style. Gospel zydeco! Now there’s an idea needing greater attention! Attendees noted that the vibe was of a New Orleans-style funeral procession, complete with people waving handkerchiefs.

A two-song tribute to Thomas Whitfield is also woven into the program, with Bishop Morton explaining that it was Whitfield who produced his first recording. Tehillah’s CEO Pastor Jerry Q. Parries, who serves as Executive Producer of Still Standing, has in the past acknowledged his own debt of gratitude to Whitfield for songwriting counsel.

Taken as a complete performance, Still Standing has the rhythm and energy of a good hard cry that wrenches the body for a time but leaves it cleansed and renewed.

3 of 4 Stars