Search - Various Artists :: Negro Religious Songs & Services

Several of these stunning field recordings, made from 1934 to 1942 by John and Ruby Lomax, along with their son Alan, are unparalleled in the annals of American song and religious incantation. Most unforgettable is the dark, ecstatic rapture of Mississippian Bozie Sturdivant singing "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down" in Clarksdale's Silent Grove Baptist Church, with conviction enough to make atheists tremble and pray. Equally thrilling is the Easter service "Man of Calvary," delivered by the Reverend Sin Killer Griffin to a congregation of Texas penal farm tenants with primal, blood-chilling fervor. Other notable cuts are medicine show veterans Blind Jimmie Strothers and Joe Lee singing "We Are Almost Down to the Shore," the bizarre voice and harmonica of Turner Junior Johnson exploring unknown realms on "In New Jerusalem" and "Steal Away," and Alabaman Dock Reed singing "Down on Me," later remade as a rock & roll benchmark by Janis Joplin. --Alan Greenberg