music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Category: gospel

Sunday, 3/21/10

At last Sunday’s (wonderful) 84th birthday celebration for DeLois Barrett Campbell, roses graced the altar—a gift from longtime friend Aretha Franklin.

DeLois Barrett Campbell and the Barrett Sisters, live, “He Has Brought Us” (Say Amen, Somebody), 1982

**********

lagniappe

And then we being blood sisters, I always say that gives our harmony a special edge.—DeLois Barrett Campbell

That girl [DeLois Barrett Campbell] can make a song so sweet you want to eat it.—Marion Williams

—Quoted in Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (6th ed. 2002) (Heilbut was at last Sunday’s birthday celebration.)

*****

mail

You supply the most delightful diversions!

*****

Spent a good portion of the afternoon playing back your old clips. Such wonderful variety.

*****

Just wanted to let you know that I’ve really been enjoying that blog of yours. Very cool.

Sunday, 3/14/10

Today at 3 p.m., at a church on Chicago’s south side (First Church of Deliverance, 4301 S. Wabash), hundreds of gospel music lovers (including me) will gather to celebrate the birthday of this group’s lead singer—it’s her 84th.

DeLois Barrett Campbell and the Barrett Sisters

“No Ways Tired,” live

*****

“Fly Away,” live

Want more? Here.

**********

lagniappe

Chicago, gospel’s Mecca and Vatican, remains the one city where traditional singers comprise a community, and retain a small but steady audience.—Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (6th ed. 2002)

Sunday, 3/7/10

Rock, jazz, gospel—no genre has a monopoly on the ecstatic impulse.

Rev. Louis Overstreet, live, “Working On The Building Praise”

**********

lagniappe

want more gospel?

Every Saturday morning, beginning at 10 a.m. (CST), you can hear an hour of great gospel on WLUW-FM, hosted by Bob Marovich (Black Gospel Blog).

Sunday, 2/28/10

If you’re a gospel singer, any time—even (especially?) a sister’s funeral—is a time to sing.

Gene Stewart (of the Soul Stirrers) with Willie Rogers (also of the Soul Stirrers), “The Last Mile of the Way” (recorded by the Soul Stirrers, with Sam Cooke, in 1955), live

**********

lagniappe

Once you are a Soul Stirrer you are always a Soul Stirrer. Sam Cooke will always be known as a Soul Stirrer regardless of what he did in the world.—Willie Rogers

*****

Want more of the Soul Stirrers? Here (with Sam Cooke [10/4/09]).

Sunday, 2/21/10

Ever wonder what Brian Eno has on his iPod?

I’ve been listening a lot lately to a box-set called ‘Goodbye Babylon’ which is 6 CDs of early 20th-century American religious music, black and white music, you know.

It’s got those Norfolk a cappella quartets and it’s got country singers, and there’s church services and everything. It’s the best compilation I’ve seen for years. It comes with a fantastic book. I find that so intriguing that I just listen again and again.—Brian Eno (quoted in L.A. Weekly)

*****

Sister O.M. Terrell

“The Bible’s Right” (1953, Nashville; included in Goodbye, Babylon)

*****

“Gambling Man” (1953, Nashville)

*****

“Swing Low, Chariot” (1953, Nashville)

**********

lagniappe

Ola Mae Long was born in Atlanta in 1911. She was raised by her mother, a laundress, near Decatur Street, and in 1922 she had a religious conversion at a revival. Thereafter, she began a street ministry under the auspices of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God, originally a South Carolina sect. Singing and playing guitar in the slide style, Terrell (her married name) spent the next half-century evangelizing on streets, in churches, and on the radio in South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.—Goodbye Babylon (accompanying book)

Want more? Here.

Sunday, 2/14/10

Where did Wilson Pickett (2/12/10) get that clenched, piercing, back-of-the-throat scream?

The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi (featuring Archie Brownlee)

“Never Turn Back” (1948)

*****

“Will Jesus Be Waiting?” (1952)

*****

“Save A Seat For Me” (c. 1956)

*****

“Leaning On The Everlasting Arms” (c. 1959)

**********

lagniappe

‘Archie started that scream you hear all the soul singers do,’ the great Ira Tucker of the Dixie Hummingbirds observed. ‘Now plenty of us used to scream, but Archie really brought it out.’—Arthur Kempton, Boogaloo: The Quintessence of American Popular Music (2005)

*****

After he left gospel, Sam Cooke once told a friend that he would always tear up when he would listen to Brownlee: ‘He’s the only one who could do that—to move me like that.’—Robert Darden, People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music (2004)

Sunday, 2/7/10

This morning, like every Sunday morning, gospel will fill the air in churches all over Chicago’s south and west sides, including the Life Center Church of God in Christ at 5500 S. Indiana, where, at 11 a.m., this man will take the pulpit.

T. L. Barrett, “Like A Ship,” live, 2009, Chicago

*****

T. L. Barrett

Vernard Johnson

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Rev. Utah Smith

In the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), they take Psalm 149 to heart: “Sing to the Lord a new song . . . mak[e] melody to him with tambourine and lyre [and guitar and saxophone and anything else you can get your hands on].”

Sunday, 1/31/10

Blind Willie Johnson recorded this song in 1929.

Tonight it’s up for a Grammy.

Ashley Cleveland, “God Don’t Never Change” (God Don’t Never Change, nominee, Best Traditional Gospel Album)

*****

Blind Willie Johnson, “God Don’t Never Change” (1929, New Orleans) (previously featured on 11/15/09)

Sunday, 1/24/10

Singing gospel, Al Green has sometimes sounded a little constrained (unlike, say, Sam Cooke, who never sounded freer). Not here.

Al Green, “Jesus Will Fix It,” live, New York (Apollo Theater), 1990

Sunday, 1/17/10

Much has been written about gospel’s influence on popular music. What’s sometimes overlooked is that influence traveled in the other direction, too. Take this song, for instance: a big hit in gospel circles, it borrows heavily from an old pop song, “That Lucky Old Sun” (1949).

Cassietta George, “Walk Around Heaven All Day” (begins at 3:45; CG, who wrote the lyrics, sang lead on the Caravans’ 1964 recording), preceded by “I Must Tell Jesus,” live

*****

Frankie Laine, “That Lucky Old Sun”