Give me Gospel

I'd suggest getting the catalogue sent to you. It is bootiful and ideal for reading in the toilet.

Brother Joe May

are they (the hgc) considered inheritors of the gospel mantle or are they frowned on by purists (and why)? are distinctions like this even made in gospel?

See also The Ladykillers soundtrack and work outward from there.

I heard an amazing track from this on Steve Cushing's show last Saturday. Or wait, maybe it was the blues show that comes on before Steve's show. ANyway, I need to get a copy of this record tout suite. How did I miss it?

http://www.labelproject.com/numero/num010.html

The Mighty Walker Brothers - "God Been Good To Me" is fucking awesome

Interesting Geoff Himes article in the Sunday August 5th NY Times even if I'm not wowed by the secular release material by retro-soul singer Ryan Shaw and steel guitar player Robert Randolph that I have heard.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/arts/music/05hime.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=arts

“It’s that Catch-22,” he explained backstage at Artscape. “The traditions of the church allow it to preserve musical styles that might otherwise be lost, but it can also make for stagnation. Things are always changing in youth culture, especially in black music, and young people want to hear those changes in church.

“If the church gives in too easily to those changes, gospel music will lose its identity,” he said, “but if it resists those changes too much, it will alienate the youth. That’s why you have all these battles about what is gospel music and what God wants to hear.”

It’s funny, Mr. Shaw said, what churches will and won’t accept. “When R&B started using jazzy chords like 7ths, 9ths and 13ths, you couldn’t use them in church because that was ‘the devil’s music,’ ” he said. “But as soon as R&B moved on to something else, suddenly it was O.K. to use those chords because the devil wasn’t using them anymore.

“Just like in the clothes world, where some stores will sell last year’s fashions, the church often ends up using the last decade’s R&B fashions.”

Thus stars like Kirk Franklin and Da’ T.R.U.T.H. might bring funk and old-school rap to the gospel charts, but there’s still a time lag between the sounds on urban radio and those on gospel radio. And in more conservative churches you’ll find the styles of ’60s soul, ’50s doo-wop or ’40s quartets perfectly preserved. If you want to learn the craft of those genres, the church is the place to study.

mentioned this in a blues thread but it really belongs here more than anything: Elder Curry - "Memphis Flu." Stomping, handclaps, shouting, barrelhouse piano, fire and brimstone, the whole nine yards. Also features the awesome couplet "Yes, He killed the rich and poor / and He's going to kill more".

Lula Collins, The Delta Gospel Queen, this is amazing gospel music.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=64792990

never gave much thought to gospel, but this mix is great:
http://goodrecordsnyc.com/sunday-night-gospel-hour/

sweet. gospel funk like this and that numero group mix is great and all, but i still haven't found a record exactly like the original poster is looking for. two-beat stuff, choir, tambourines, etc. i've only really heard it live, but there have to be some decent records out there!

okay, this mix is pretty sick. wish i could download!

the new Cece Winans is really something

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/28/AR2008032803338.html

Interesting Washington Post feature on Kirk Franklin, the top-selling modern gospel artist. He's still not happy.

that is a good article curmudgeon thanks for it!

"Leaning on the Everlasting Arm" by Iris DeMent. Will Paypal you a buck if you don't like it.

(a but croony but in a different way)

she's good but I'm listening to people who really love Jesus right now

like, really REALLY

I just got Memphis Flu.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1EJAdvSupg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ymTXIcTfvU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FME5-kc5BMA

this doesn't really do it justice, but i love that neko case version of 'this little light' that's on her live album. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tln8XjN6z64

Irma Thomas, will be featured on the season finale of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In the episode, the Extreme Makeover project is Noah’s Ark Missionary Baptist Church, which was destroyed by the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina. After the completion of the church, Thomas performs the gospel song “Singing Hallelujah” in its new sanctuary. She is accompanied by Hammond B-3 organist Dwight Franklin and pianist Diane Peterson, from the historic New Orleans First African Baptist Church. The episode airs Sunday, May 18 at 8 PM EST/7 PM CST.

Wow. Just saw the Original Soul Invaders from Industry, Texas do an incredible show at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival down between the Washington Monument and the Capitol in DC. Guitar, bass, drums, keyboard and a number of vocalists. They mix classic gospel soul quartet wailing vocals with soul and funk rhythms. Reverend Green plays electric guitar and he jumped off the stage onto the Texas Dancehall tent dance floor and played Texas blues meets Bo Diddley meets Chuck Berry meets Curtis Mayfield stylings. The singer also ended up on the dance floor doing soul shouting and dancing and clapping. The singer was chanting at one point something that sounded like "Got to be a Holy Ghost Party, cuz a holy ghost party don't stop." They had no cds for sale and I've yet to find anything about them on the internet other than a photo on Flickr that does not convey the excitement of the show I saw. Below is their bio from the Smithsonian Folkife Fest website:

The Original Soul Invaders, Industry, Texas
Roy Green
Danny Davis
Demontreal Edmond
David Scott
Chadwick Turner
Chris Washington
The Original Soul Invaders draw on the amplified quartet tradition popular with African American gospel groups in Texas. Founder and leader Roy Green, who pastors the Mars Hill Deliverance Tabernacle Church in Fayetteville, Texas, started the group in the late 1970s.

Maybe M. McGonigal (sp.?)of Yeti publishing can track them down and release something.

yes you spelled my name right, thanks.

and i *am* starting my own sub-label of mississippi records this year. would certainly love to hear that group based on your description. any way i can hear 'em perhaps?

i love folklife fests 'cause i always go to them thinking "bah humbug" and emerge super psyched about something.

it's hard for me to add to this thread 'cause i don't know really what kind of gospel people are looking for -- there's so much variety to this music, from so many eras, and a lot of what people are digging to me personally is friggin crony but i do not want to belittle what they're digging, you know?

when getting into this stuff, there's so much golden age era gospel music that is just amazing. be careful that the music you're getting is that group at their height, however -- you'll never see worse attention paid to release dates/ personnel than you will with gospel.

CORNY not crony

I never did find a contact address.

Has anybody seen this American Idol like tv show involving US church gospel choirs? There are apparently competitions in 14 cities that people can attend.

http://www2.howsweetthesound.com/contest/overview

i really want to see that.

i never tire of this particular video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7emqvkt0T-Y

by the time time the halfway mark hits i have trouble sitting still

anyone heard this gospel comp? samples sound good.

Sherman Washington died this week. Mr. Washington was really the heart and soul of the Gospel Tent at the Jazz Fest, and was instrumental in taking gospel music outside of its church roots to a more mainstream audience with his group, the Zion Harmonizers, who won OffBeat's Best of The Beat award repeatedly for Best Gospel Group. He passed away after a lengthy illness at the age of 85. Reportedly there will be a tribute to Mr. Washington at this year's Jazz Fest.

From the Offbeat.com website of New Orleans magazine Offbeat

I watched Singsation this morning. Normally I'm sleeping or doing something else. I have to remember to watch this more often!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/3196709555_e9e53b13b1_z.jpg?zz=1
Vintage Atlanta soul i found in a thrift shop years ago. I did this vinyl rip but warning it may have a skip or two...

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zm2d1zuqmt0

man, those Mike McGooney-gal gospel comps on tompkins sq. are the gifts that keep on giving.

probably the best $4 you'll spend today http://canary-records.bandcamp.com/album/when-the-moon-goes-down-in-the-valley-of-time-african-american-gospel-1939-51
says ian nagoski: "When the Moon Goes Down in the Valley of Time: African-American Gospel, 1939-51 is a compilation I worked on sporadically over the past year dealing with prayers, promises, and visions of death and the apocalypse in the proto-Civil Rights era. When it became clear that there was no publisher for it, I abandoned it with the sound restoration only 80% done and without notes. It’s now available as 18 tracks (48 minutes) for $4."

heard this a couple weeks ago while flipping thru radio on a sunday morning, have had it in my head off and on since

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp77z1aQHQs

VA [2014] Say Amen!: Gospel Funk From Jewel Records

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8myCJYBznc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtayhqPjz5Y

I need to see what Youtube videos have been added for The Original Soul Invaders, of Industry, Texas, since I raved about them upthread in 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/the-richard-smallwood-you-know-4-doves-10-stellars-8-grammy-noms/2015/07/22/553d5cfc-0a28-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html

His song "Total Praise" that has been covered by Destiny's Child, other gospel singers, and synagogue choirs as well, continues to get covered. The article focusses on his rebound from depression.

Still, he has watched RCA Inspiration’s younger artists, such as Donnie McClurkin and Fred Hammond, register platinum sales, while he has yet to have a single album sell more than 500,000 copies to reach gold status. Smallwood says that before his diagnosis, he felt his depression was brought on by comparing his success to others’. “I have always been very insecure about my gift,” he says.

But longtime gospel publicist Bil Carpenter says: “Richard is not for the masses. He’s for a more sophisticated, smaller group of people. He’s a thinking man’s gospel. It’s the chitlin’ circuit versus the Kennedy Center. Richard is the Kennedy Center.”

...

Some gospel artists, such as multiplatinum Kirk Franklin, have achieved wider commercial success by mixing in hip-hop. But Smallwood has remained with his classical sound.

Jacquie Gales Webb, who for more than 20 years has hosted a popular gospel segment on Washington’s WHUR radio, says Smallwood’s songs are distinctive because of the importance of the piano — not electric piano or keyboard playing, but a grand-piano style.

“No matter what genre he’s playing, in his music the piano is the prominent feature,” Webb says. “That’s how you know it’s a Richard Smallwood song.”

Valerie Simpson, who helped create the Motown sound as part of the husband-and-wife songwriting duo Ashford & Simpson, likens Smallwood to Stevie Wonder, because his lyrics, she says, “transcend a moment” and capture a sound of a generation that lasts for decades.

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0002/782/MI0002782133.jpg?partner=allrovi.com
This Mahalia comp from '91 has some awesome songs on it, fuck me - such a voice.

Saw a 10 act classic gospel marathon show Saturday. Blind Boys of Mississippi and Swanee Quintet were great. Spencer Taylor and the Highway QCs were good, as were many of the other acts.

This 2017 Film doc “How I Got Over” about pioneering gospel acts including Highway QCs and others looks good.

https://vimeo.com/231140998

https://thedcline.org/2019/02/14/still-testifying-90-year-old-spencer-taylor-jr-and-the-highway-qcs-gospel-group-stay-busy-live-and-in-the-studio/

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9476603/rance-allen-dead-obit

Gospel star Rance Allen, whose Rance Allen Group drew upon contemporary sounds for such 1970s hits as “Ain’t No Need of Crying” and “I Belong To You” and anticipated such crossover gospel artists as The Winans and Amy Grant, has died at age 71.

Allen’s wife, Ellen Allen, and manager Toby Jackson announced in a joint statement that Allen died early Saturday (Oct. 31) while recovering from a “medical procedure” at Heartland ProMedica in Sylvania, Ohio. Allen was a longtime Toledo, Ohio resident and most recently bishop for Church of God in Christ for the Michigan Northwestern Harvest Jurisdiction.

I need to post some of the videos I saw on twitter. What a voice and range-- from deep lows to falsetto highs.

I popped into the gospel tent to see him when I went to Jazzfest last year, he was raising the roof. Glad now that I did, RIP.

https://youtu.be/YJNIhA4-Ga4

His performance in Wattstax is so great. I assumed for years he was a Memphis/southern guy, didn’t discover until years later he was from Michigan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCuvhbPbbty

various recent live gospel videos

Oops, well subscribe to the right Christopher Klug youtube and you will find gospel

I've started getting into the Pilgrim Travelers lately, just impeccable, electrifying music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhDsaOSCGZo

that’s really cool. I’ve been getting into some Golden Gate Quartet, around the same time I think. the interplay of their voices is not infrequently astounding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh4NRX2O7O8

yeah it looks like that's 1939 and the tune I posted is 1947. Def some stylistic similarities. And you can really hear a lot of boogie and pre-rock and roll in the rhythm

RIP falsetto singer Paul Beasley who was in Mighty Clouds of Joy and other groups

Oops I think it was just the anniversary of his death recently