Tag Archives: Gospel

Various Artists: Look to the Light – Songs of Faith from the Pen of Rick Lang

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Contemporary bluegrass and gospel songs of faith

Rick Lang is a contemporary songwriter whose works have been recorded by a who’s-who of modern bluegrass players, including the Lonesome River Band, IIIrd Tyme Out and Southern Rail. Mandolinist Jesse Brock and guitarist John Miller have teamed with a collection of crack singers and acoustic instrumentalists to record fourteen of Lang’s tunes. The lead vocalists include Russell Moore, Junior Sisk, Jeff Parker, and Dale Perry, with Brock, Miller and the supremely talented Dale Ann Bradley adding harmonies. Lang writes songs of praise that are filled with musical spirit, which makes them enjoyable by bluegrass fans of all religious and irreligious stripes. The arrangements focus on the lyrics and vocals, but the players show their wares in support and in short instrumental breaks; Roger Williams’ dobro is particularly compelling. This is a low-key, at times an almost meditative album whose religious conviction is laid into both the words and beautiful music. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper: Songs of Inspiration

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A terrific, if too short, collection of the Coopers’ songs of faith

Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper were one of country music’s most popular husband-and-wife duos for over 40 years, particularly during their stints on the Wheeling Jamboree and the Grand Ole Opry. Lee (nee Leary) began singing gospel music with The Leary Family in the early 1930s, and upon marrying Cooper in 1939 she began singing bluegrass and country as well. The duo signed with Hickory (the house label of the Acuff-Rose publishing empire) in the mid-50s, and hit it big with Don Gibson’s “There’s a Big Wheel,” the blazing mono mix of which opens this collection. All twelve of these tracks are all gathered from their years with Hickory, selected from singles and the early-60s albums Family Favorites and Songs of Inspiration. Throughout, Wilma Lee sings in forceful, open-throated testimony that simply can’t be ignored. The songs are primarily from country songwriters (Don Gibson, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Charlie & Ira Louvin, Fred Rose), though two tunes from one of Judaism’s most successful Christmas songwriters, Johnny Marks, are also included in terrific fiddle-and-steel arrangements. The Coopers recorded many inspirational titles, including singles, album tracks and full theme albums. At only twelve songs, this set merely scratches the surface (notably absent are “There’s a Higher Power” and “Tramp on the Street” – there are also no credits or liner notes), but what’s here is uniformly great. You can find a few more on Varese’s earlier Very Best Of or go all in with Bear Family’s Big Midnight Special. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dolly Parton: Letter to Heaven – Songs of Faith and Inspiration

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Parton’s 1971 album of faith and praise + 7 bonuses

Letter to Heaven returns to print 1971’s Golden Streets of Glory, Dolly Parton’s first full album of inspirational song. The seventeen tracks of this 45-minute collection include the album’s original ten and six bonuses cherry-picked from Parton’s albums and singles of the 1970s. As a treat for collectors, the original album session track “Would You Know Him (If You Saw Him) is released here for the first time. The latter is among Parton’s most compelling vocals in the set, and a real mystery as to how it was left off the original release. Parton wrote or co-wrote ten of the seventeen titles and puts her vocal stamp on standards (“I Believe”), country (“Wings of a Dove”), gospel (“How Great Thou Art”) and classic spirituals (“Swing Low Sweet Chariot,” here reworked as “Comin’ For to Carry Me Home”). The album’s originals are surprisingly generic songs of faith and praise, unsatisfying in comparison to the following year’s brilliant “Coat of Many Colors.”

The bonus tracks fare much better. Parton’s tribute to her grandfather, “Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man” is joined by memories of childhood church-going in “Sacred Memories.” Her appreciation of creation’s majesty, “God’s Coloring Book” is personal and intimate, and “Letter to Heaven” retains its power to evoke a lump in your throat forty years after it was recorded. Producer Bob Ferguson dials back his Nashville Sound to light arrangements of country, soul and gospel; the twang is still minimized, but neither the strings nor backing choruses overwhelm. RCA Legacy’s single-CD reissue includes recording details and liner note by Deborah Evans Price. Fans will be glad to have this back in print, but those new to the Parton catalog might check out other key album reissues first, such as Coat of Many Colors, Jolene, or My Tennessee Mountain Home. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dolly Parton’s Home Page

Raeburn Flerlage: Chicago Folk- Images of the Sixties Music Scene

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Previously unseen photos of 1960s folk, blues and bluegrass scene

Raeburn Flerlage, who passed away in 2002 at the age of 86, was as much a record man as he was a photographer. His decades of work in writing about, promoting, distributing and selling records gave him both an insider’s collection of contacts and a fan’s undying love of musicians and their music. Moving to Chicago in the mid-1940s he placed himself at a well-traveled crossroads for touring artists and, later, ground-zero of the electric blues revolution. He began studying photography in the late-1950s and was given his first assignment (a session with Memphis Slim that found placement in a Folkways record booklet) in 1959.

Flerlage worked primarily as a freelancer, capturing musicians and their audiences at Chicago’s music festivals, concert halls, theaters, college auditoriums and clubs. He was welcomed into rehearsal halls, recording and radio studios, hotel rooms and even musicians’ homes. His photographs appeared in promotional materials, magazines (most notably, Down Beat), and illustrated books that included Charles Keil’s Urban Blues and Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues. In 1971 he started a record distributorship and mostly stopped taking photographs. When his company closed in 1984 he found the demand for his photos increasing, and spent his “retirement” fielding requests from all around the world.

In 2000 ECW elevated Flerlage from photo credits to photographer with the first book dedicated to his photos, Chicago Blues: As Seen From the Inside. His pictures evidenced the comfort and familiarity of someone who’d mingled with musicians on both a professional and personal level, and who’d developed a feel for their lives and their places of work. Fellow photographer Val Wilmer wrote him “No one else has taken the kind of moody action shots that you took in Chicago, so full of atmosphere and so full of the blues.” His photographs were more than just documentation, they were a part of the scene in which musicians created music. Studs Terkel (who’s included in four photos) pointed out that Flerlage was more than a photographer, he was a companion.

This second volume of photographs, despite its title, is not strictly limited to Chicago musicians or folk singers. “Chicago” covers natives, transplants and those touring through the Windy City, and “Folk” encompasses a variety of roots musicians, including guitar toting singer-songwriters, folk groups, blues and gospel singers, bluegrass bands and more. Even those who know Flerlage’s work – either by name or by sight – are unlikely to have seen this part of his catalog. Among the 200-plus photos here, most have never been published before and none duplicate entries in the earlier Chicago Blues.

There are many well-known musicians depicted here, including Odetta, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Doc Watson, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Furry Lewis, the Weavers, Mother Maybelle Carter, Mississippi John Hurt and Bob Dylan. They’re captured in the act of creation: playing or singing, entertaining an audience or conversing with fellow artists. Big Joe Williams is shown seated, staring off camera in concentration as his right hand blurs with motion. The Staple Singers are depicted with their mouths open in family harmony and their hands suspended between claps. Flerlage focused on a musician’s internal intimacy, but also expanded his frame to add the context of stage, auditorium, spotlight and audience.

Beyond the most easily recognized names, Flerlage made pictures of lesser-known musicians, as well as those instrumental in Chicago and folk’s music scenes. Highlights include rare shots of blues busker Blind Arvella Gray, radio legend Norman Pellegrini, Old Town School of Music co-founders Win Stracke and Frank Hamilton, Folkways label founder Moe Asch, Appalachian artists Roscoe Holcomb and Frank Proffitt, children’s folk singer Ella Jenkins, field recordist Sam Charters, Sing Out editor Irwin Silver, one-man band Dr. Ross, and dozens more. Flerlage also captured record stores such as Kroch and Brentano’s and Discount Records, blending his work as a photographer with his career in distribution.

The photos range from careful compositions that frame artists in stage light to spontaneous grabs in adverse conditions. Whatever the circumstance, Flerlage caught something about each subject that remains vital on the page fifty years later. The book is printed on heavy, semi-gloss stock, and it’s only real weakness is the lack of expositional text. The 12-page introduction by Ronald D. Cohen provides context on the photographer, but the photo captions provide little detail on the photographed. The pictures are worth seeing on their own, but they would come alive for more readers if the subjects, particularly the local heroes and lesser-known artists, were given a few sentences of explanation. Buy the book, enjoy the photos, and spend some quality time with Google to dig up the stories. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Presley: Elvis 75

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Career spanning single CD skims the surface of Elvis’ greatness

This single CD, issued in celebration of Elvis Presley’s 75th birthday anniversary, includes twenty-five tracks selected from the more thorough 4-CD Elvis 75 Good Rockin’ Tonight. Much like the box set, this disc covers the length of Elvis’ career, including early sides for Sun, incendiary rock ‘n’ ‘roll for RCA, hits from the movies, post-Army comebacks, gospel, late-60s Memphis gems, live performances and later studio work from 1972. Unlike the box set, you’ll miss his pre-Sun acetate and his post-72 recordings. More importantly, each phase of Elvis’ career gets only one or a few cuts here, and the lesser known tracks that provide compelling context in the box set are dropped.

Obviously, a career as rich as Elvis Presley’s can’t be summed up in a single disc. Even his Top 10 hits won’t fit on a single CD, and there’s so much material beyond the charts that a fair hearing of the King’s catalog really takes multiple discs or sets. 30 #1 Hits painted a picture of Presley’s career through a recitation of his best-known hits; it’s a fair summary, as is the broader 2-1/2 CD Essential 3.0. But none of these short collections, this one included, provide enough depth on Elvis’ innovations, failures and resurgences to really essay the full arc of his career. A single disc such as this can serve as a map to an artist’s career, but it’s no substitute for a more thorough hearing.

What’s here is fantastic. From the early rave-up of Arthur “Big Boy” Cruddup’s “That’s All Right” through the deeply-felt “Always On My Mind,” Elvis is nothing less than brilliant. The disc is nicely programmed and plays well, but with so few tracks to provide context, you’ll have to figure out for yourself how Elvis got from “Viva Las Vegas” to “How Great Thou Art.” If you want to dig deeper, seek out the 4-CD box, or sets that survey his 50s, 60s and 70s masters, soundtracks, sessions at Sun and American Studios, his ’68 comeback special, and his numerous live recordings.

The disc is delivered in a two-section digipack featuring a pair of full-panel Presley photos. The 16-page booklet includes a short biographical essay by Billy Altman (seemingly excerpted from his much longer essay in the box set), additional photos, and recording and chart data. If you think you only need one disc of Elvis Presley’s music, this isn’t a bad place to get an earful, but be forewarned that it’s a gateway to a large catalog that you may find yourself unable to resist. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Presley: Elvis 75- Good Rockin’ Tonight

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4-CD anthology shines as brightly as a King’s crown

Elvis was not only the king of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Little Richard’s claim on the crown notwithstanding), but in his afterlife he has also become the undisputed king of reissues and anthologies. RCA’s four-CD set, spanning from his earliest self-funded acetates through late home recordings and live sides, his last major studio works and a post-mortem remix, offers no new tracks for Presley’s legions of collectors, but provides a superb introduction and deep overview for anyone who’s heard about, rather than heard, the King. Those who know a few hits or have sat through an Elvis movie or two will find the greatness of his musical catalog measures up to the hype and explains the dedication of his most ardent fans.

Collected here are one hundred tracks, beginning with Presley’s very first recording, “My Happiness,” waxed on his own dime as a gift for his mother. His earliest commercial sides show how he forged hillbilly, blues and country roots into his personal strand of rock ‘n’ roll, first for Sun with Scotty Moore and Bill Black, and then, with the addition of D.J. Fontana on drums and A-list guests like Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins, for RCA. These early works aren’t so much primitive as they are elemental – the lack of production pomp or circumstance presents Elvis as an unadorned and raw rock ‘n’ roll spirit. The addition of a backing vocal trio, as can first be heard on 1956’s “I Was the One,” showed a crooning side of Elvis that would continue to reappear even as he continued to explore rockabilly and blues.

From the 50s through the 70s Elvis moved through a variety of producer’s hands and a number of different studios, and got something different from each. His studio recordings took him from Memphis to Nashville, north to New York, west to Hollywood, back to Nashville where he worked in RCA’s legendary Studio B and back to Memphis for his legendary late-60s sessions at Chip Moman’s American Studios. By the early ‘70s, on the heels of his televised comeback special, Elvis once again became a live draw, and selected sides find him in Las Vegas, Honolulu and on the road in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Elvis waxed his share of clunkers, but with each new direction and in each new setting he seemed to record something worthwhile, and producer Ernst Mikael Jorgensen has done a masterful job of picking highlights.

More importantly, Jorgensen has intermixed iconic hits with lesser known singles and album tracks, showing the depth of Elvis’ artistry and the catalog he created. Elvis often overwhelmed the charts with hit singles, leaving terrific performances such as the energized “One-Sided Love Affair,” a bluesy cover of Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and the gospel “Thrill of Your Love” to languish as album tracks. Even more surprising is a 1962 version of “Suspicion” that pre-dates Terry Stafford’s hit by two years. Elvis’ soundtracks included their share of dregs, particularly as the ‘60s wore on, but they also included hits and great album tracks like a scorching version of “Trouble” from King Creole and bluesy covers of Dylan’s “Tomorrow is a Long Time” from Spinout and Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” from Clambake.

While other artists reinvented themselves to fit the times, Elvis bent the times around himself (excepting “Yoga is as Yoga Does,” thankfully not included here), staying true to his voice as everything around him changed. His producers, songwriters, and musicians kept turning over, but in the center of it all Elvis sang a surprisingly straight line from ’53 to ‘77. Even as his voice matured and the productions were influenced by his Vegas stage show, the fire in his delivery remained. Whether singing rock, blues, country, soul, pop or gospel, his performances found a true line stretched from the Sun sessions through RCA studios in Nashville, New York and Hollywood, a stint in the army, a catalog of often mediocre films, his 1968 resurrection, a triumphant return to Memphis, and country sessions that brought him back to his roots.

For many listeners, disc four will be the least familiar. Covering 1970 through 1977, these selections find Elvis’ singles charting lower, but still delivering the goods. Only “Burning Love” made the top-5, and his other top-10 from that stretch, “The Wonder of You,” is not included. “An American Trilogy,” is at once bombastic and utterly show-stopping, his version of “Always on My Mind” made the country charts but should have found cross-over success before Willie Nelson ten years later, and his last single, “Way Down,” though given to ‘70s production sounds, finds his gospel fervor undimmed. The beat heavy remix of “A Little Less Conversation” that closes the set shows just how easily Elvis’ voice could slide into new contexts (the original film performance from Live a Little, Love a Little is worth searching out on DVD, by the way). These hundred tracks aren’t a complete run through every Elvis highlight, but they tell the entire arc of his musical career in a compelling and thorough way.

The box includes an 80-page booklet that features a biographical essay by Billy Altman, numerous photos, reproductions of original record labels, covers and picture sleeves, movie posters, master tape boxes, and detailed recording, chart and personnel data. RCA/Legacy is releasing a companion 26-track single disc that cherry-picks this box, and though it may prove useful as a guide to further Elvis purchases, it doesn’t provide the compelling, detailed portrait of this four-disc set. With more Elvis 75th-birthday anniversary reissues on the way (and a terrific 2-CD version of From Elvis in Memphis already out) you may be tempted to put together your own collection, but you’d have a hard time assembling a more compelling introduction than this box. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Patty Loveless: Mountain Soul II

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PattyLoveless_MountainSoul2Second helping of acoustic mountain music

Patty Loveless is one of Nashville’s few contemporary stars who hsds always managed to infuse her hits with a helping of mountain soul. Her run through the top-40 mixed twangy steel-lined modern country production with the sounds of rockabilly, gospel, blues, and a voice that’s country to the bone. All of that adds up to great recordings, but what made great records was a selection of material that drew from the best of Nashville’s pros and a deep helping of outsider gems. In the former category are Kostas’ “Timber I’m Falling in Love” and Matraca Berg’s “You Can Feel Bad,” and in the latter category is Lucinda Williams’ “The Night’s Too Long,” Rodney Crowell’s “Loving All Night,” and Jim Lauderdale’s “You Don’t Seem to Miss Me.”

Beyond the singles charts, Loveless released albums full of quality tracks, particularly those produced by her husband Emory Gordy Jr. Midway through her tenure with the Epic label Loveless took a break from contemporary country to record Mountain Soul, an acoustic album of bluegrass and mountain music. The arrangements and material (which included a few covers amongst contemporary works) grew from an acoustic section of Loveless’ live show and highlighted the mountain roots that undergirded her more highly produced recordings. A second set of bluegrass-flavored productions was recorded for 2002’s Bluegrass and White Snow: A Mountain Christmas, and her return to more typical Nashville production on 2003’s On Your Way Home kept the roots pushed up front.

Eight years after coming out with Mountain Soul Loveless has returned again to mostly acoustic arrangements. The high, lonesome vocals and tight harmonies also return, but the material stretches further into country and gospel, and the guest list expands to include Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Stuart Duncan, and Del and Ronnie McCoury. Loveless sings with her typical brilliance, and the accompaniment provides support without covering up any of the emotional colors of her voice. Her held notes, bent sour and brought back to key, communicate more than the typical modern Nashville vocalist says in an entire song.

Loveless is as strong harmonizing as she is singing lead, her tenor is the perfect leavening for Del McCoury on the traditional “Working on a Building,” and she’s warmed by the Primitive Baptist Congregation gospel choir on the original “(We Are All) Childeren of Abraham.” Gordy is equally adept at crafting sympathetic backings as he is in picking spots to let Loveless sing unadorned. The traditional “Friends in Gloryland” is sung a cappella with Vince Gill and Rebecca Lynn Howard, blending their voices into thick chords that need no additional instruments.

There’s some fine picking from Rob Ickes, Bryon Sutton, and Stuart Duncan but the lasting impression of this album is its mountain vocal soul. Amid the talents of Del and Ronnie McCoury, Carl Jackson, Vince Gill, Rebecca Lynn Howard, Tim Hensley, Jon Randall and Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless’ voice stands tall, ringing down from the mountains of her native Kentucky. Perhaps the greatest thing that’s come from Loveless’ commercial country success is the freedom it’s bought her to pursue the old-timey sounds that are near to her heart. “Country” radio may ignore this, but Loveless’ fans, and all fans of hill-bred folk and country music will enjoy this second helping. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Blind Boys of Alabama: Duets

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BlindBoysOfAlabama_DuetsGospel soul harmonies matched to pop, rock, blues and more

The Blind Boys of Alabama formed as a quartet in 1939 at what was then called the Alabama School for the Negro Deaf & Blind. All four members – three primary vocalists and a drummer – were blind. Of the four founders, two have passed, one has retired, and Clarence Fountain continues to tour with the group as his health allows. Like the Staple Singers, the Blind Boys of Alabama sing traditional material and bring their gospel harmonies to pop music. This collection pulls together fourteen collaborations in which the group backs up or sings alongside folk, rock, pop, country, blues, soul and reggae artists.

All but four of these tracks were previously released, but anthologizing them in a single place provides an amplified view of how the group’s gospel meshes into a variety of musical contexts, and how effortlessly the group pulls other artists into their embrace. Ben Harper’s soulful singing is a natural fit, as are Toots Hibbert’s and Solomon Burke’s. Randy Travis’ old-timey religion gives the group a jaunty rhythm, and the twangy guitar, solid backbeat and spoken blues of Charlie Musselwhite’s “I Had Trouble” is backed with Jordanaires-styled harmonies.

The acoustic “Welcome Table” provides Dan Zanes and the group a terrific arena for vocal interplay, even dropping in an a cappella verse. The spare blues of John Hammond’s “One Kind of Favor” finds the group harmonizing in a low hum, and the swing stylings of Asleep at the Wheel’s “The Devil Ain’t Lazy” offer a playful way to put across the song’s message. Perhaps most surprising is the pairing with Lou Reed on the Velvet Underground’s “Jesus.” Here the group’s harmonies shed the light of salvation upon Reed’s spent and broken monotone.

Timothy B. Schmit’s “Secular Praise” is the album’s newest track, and the cuts by Toots Hibbert, Lou Reed and John Hammond are each previously unreleased. All four are fine additions to the material that was drawn from ten different original artist’s albums. The group’s live and recorded work has received numerous accolades over the years, including film and TV placements and five Grammy awards, but their greatest compliments may just be these invitations to make music with their peers. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: Songs 4 Worship: Country Live

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Various_Songs4WorshipCountryLiveFine collection of worship, but not all country

The extensive and popular Songs 4 Worship series has included themed and Spanish-language releases as well as soul, gospel and country sets. Like 2007’s edition, this collection of live performances (recorded at the Ryman Auditorium) often strays far from country sounds. The opening track by Lenny LeBlanc is a fine song of praise, but the presence of steel guitar doesn’t keep it country. The gospel of the Palmetto State Quartet’s “Trading My Sorrows” is terrific, rousing the crowd into clapping, but again there’s really nothing country in it. Crossover artists Rebecca Lynn Howard and Bryan White are both in good voice but fail to deliver on their country roots, and even the rootsy stalwart Ricky Skaggs is softened by the stage band’s accompaniment. Where the show plants some roots is with Collin Raye, whose bluesy delivery gives a twangy front to the band’s performance. Marty Raybon also finds some country soul in the his lower register. Ironically, the album’s most countrified tracks are studio cuts borrowed from earlier albums by Randy Travis, Alison Krauss, Diamond Rio and Alabama. The live band fits nicely behind the album’s live acts, but it fails to make the country singers sound country. This is all the more obvious when compared to the studio cuts. This is a good album of worship and praise, with plenty of energy in the live performances, just note that most of the twang is in the previously released studio tracks. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

The Band of Heathens: One Foot in the Ether

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BandOfHeathens_OneFootInTheEtherAustin-style country, rock, folk, gospel, blues and soul

The Band of Heathens’ second studio album (their fourth overall, having started their recording career with two live releases) is a big step forward. The artistic palette of last year’s eponymous release is carried forward here, but the result sounds less like a collage of influences and more like a band that’s discovered its own groove. The twin inspirations of Little Feat and the Band remain particularly strong, but as channeled spirits rather than imitated sounds. With three singer-songwriters contributing a dozen originals to this self-produced release, the group clearly knows they have the goods. Their experience as a live unit pays dividends in the studio, as they sound like a band running through their set rather than musical architects constructing a recording.

The group’s comfort is immediately apparent on the chorus harmonies of “Say.” Their multipart singing is tight as a drum but also as loose as a casual back porch harmony session. The same is true for the gospel backing of “Shine a Light” and the lead passing on both the Little Feat groove “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and sad-sack blues “Right Here With Me.” This is a group that’s clearly spent time getting comfortable with one another. Their musical sympathy is heard in jamming solos and instrumental codas, and the seemingly ad libbed exhortation to “keep it going” as “You’re Gonna Miss Me” threatens to wind down.

The band’s name proves ironic as their songs are laced with biblical images. They sing of non-conformists, petulant ex-lovers, and independent ramblers, but these tales are filled with doubt and remorse. Gospel influences, both musical and liturgical, praise the hard work of salvation, cast an accusing eye towards the contradictions and hypocrisy of modern society, and call for reconciliation with one another and, seemingly, a higher power. The clanking blues “Golden Calf” warns of a false idol’s allure, and even songs of busted relationships have an eternal ring as they sing “you can give up, you can give in / but you can never quit.”

Last year’s studio debut climbed to the top of the Americana chart and promoted the band from scattered local club dates to a full touring schedule. Their continuing musical growth is evident in both the absorption of their top-line influences and the addition of new touches, such as the dripping Dark Side of the Moon styled guitar of “Look at Miss Ohio.” The results are organic and unforced, and by producing themselves and releasing on their own label, the group remains free to chase their singular, yet multi-headed musical muse. The adage “you have a lifetime to record your first album and a year to record your second” doesn’t seem to have vexed the Band of Heathens at all. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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