Search - Blind Willie Johnson, The Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet, The Dixie Hummingbirds :: The Gospel Sound { Various Artists }

For 30 years the best Gospel collection, and some of the bes

Hank n Tennessee | Virginia, USA | 03/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you like Ray Charles, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, the Soul of Motown or Stax-Volt, or any great Black R&B or Soul singer that you care to name - then you will love this music. These are the roots, the soil it came from, the training ground for pop stars from Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett through Whitney Houston and Lou Rawls, and the arena in which many of them made better, more powerful music than they ever did on the pop stage - Black Gospel music from the 30's through the 60's.



Even to an agnostic like me, this is holy stuff, sacred ground, as important and immortal as any musical art that America has produced - it belongs on the same shelf with Louis Armstrong in the 20's, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the late 40's, the Ellington Band in the early 40's, Coltrane in the 60's, Miles Davis mid 60's quintets, the rags of Scott Joplin, the music of George Gershwin or Stephen Foster or Aaron Copland, the bluegrass of Bill Monroe, the country of Hank Williams, the blues of Robert Johnson, the rock and roll of Elvis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry - this is quintessential America. And it rocks like a m****f****!!



This is as authoritative as a collection can get, produced by John Hammond of Columbia Records, the guy who "discovered" Count Basie and Bob Dylan and produced "Spirituals to Swing" and all the rest, and Tony Heilbut, historian and gospel fanatic. These guys know the best when they hear it, and they have crammed an amazing amount of the best into just 2 CD's. From stunning folk roots of Blind Willie Johnson and his slide guitar, Arizona Dranes and the "primitive" Mitchell's Christian Singers to the smoothly polished "jubilee" style of the Golden Gates, to the intense, driving "hard gospel" quartets of the smoking Ira Tucker and the Dixie Hummingbirds, from the solo divas (Mahalia Jackson, Marion Williams, Dorothy Love Coates) to the rocking, swept away "in the spirit" choirs like the Abbysinian Baptist, it is all here. Has any American ever sung better, and rocked harder, than the Golden Gates in "Jezebel", the Dixie Hummingbirds in "One Day" or Dorothy Love Coates in "Strange Man". This is time capsule stuff, as definitive as Hank William's "Cheating Heart", Berry's "Johny Be Good", Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" or Copland's "Appalachian Spring". As much as any 2 CD's can capture a music, Heilbut and Hammond have done it. For 30 years, this collection has been the place to start with Black Gospel.



Not everything fits - I badly miss Archie Brownlee and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi; R.H. Harris and Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers; Claude Jeter with the Swan Silvertones. You can pick up these guys and many others by moving next to Tony Heilbut's collection "When Gospel was Gospel" on Shanachie, or the new "Gospel Music" collection by Joel Dorn and Lee Friedlander, just a click away on Amazon. But right here is the place to start.

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Definitive historical anthology of gospel roots

S. Lyons | Pleasantville, USA | 09/29/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I acquired this as an LP set in 1980. The tracks are arranged chronologically, and illustrate the remarkable progression of African-American spiritual music as recorded on Columbia records. This label is remarkable in that, beginning in the early part of the 20th century, it developed an extensive library of various American music forms. Not only is this compilation a good primer for gospel neophytes, but it is also essential for anyone involved in religious music -- particularly gospel music history. Pick this set up quickly, before it goes out of print again!"

Great CD's!

Dwayne | Maryland | 10/18/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"These CD's are great. It really shows the heritage of Gospel music. "I Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody" is sure to have you pat your feet and clap your hands...and maybe even do a shout. Also, I'm really not a big Marion Williams fan, but her songs that are featured on this CD are marvellous"