Why has there never been a gospel thread on ILM?

C/D Modern-day artists who use gospel choirs

...i heard you have every seminal detroit techno white label from the year 1985, 1986, 1987...

I would have let basic channel slide. :)

u b the judge.

brian

-- don't forget that white folks sing some nice gospel too -- the Stanleys ("Angel Band"!), the Louvins, the Carter Family, much great stuff

-- anyone know "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'?" by the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet? Great historical oddity from 1942 -- a black gospel quartet singing a pro-Stalin number about how the Russkies stood up to the Nazis. It's this whole thing about how the devil creates Hitler because he was jealous of God creating Adam, but he meets his match when he takes on "that noble Russian." "Stalin wasn't stallin'/ when he told the Beast of Berlin/ that he never would rest contented/ 'til they'd driven him from the land..."

-- Blind Willie Johnson! ("Let Your Light Shine on Me" is practically rock 'n' roll, straight from 1929 -- I love when he goes into his froggy voice -- "I know I've got religion, and I ain't ashamed")

-- I don't know who recorded the definitive "I'll Fly Away" -- I have it by a couple different people, but I don't think any of them are the originators -- but that's been one of my favorite songs since I was a kid

-- I've never been Christian a day in my life, but good gospel music is one of the best arguments I know for anyone to go to church

"Stalin Wasn't Stallin'" was covered by Robert Wyatt, btw.

the classic Mahalia Jackson Live at Newport was something i grew up with so that is automatically gets a vote from me. It is an incredible performance however and well worth getting. Other notable Mahalia the "Black Brown & Beige" with Duke Ellington tho not straightahead gospel is also great.

Al Green is of course wonderful whatever he is doing and his live shows are an experience not to be missed.

more recent releases, the Blind Boys from Alabama have been putting out good albums. Didn't hear the last one but the couple before that had some amazing tracks.

No Ways Tired by Fontella Bass (of "Rescue Me") was a nice comeback for her. I never seem to make it to the end of the album tho, fade out after the first 4 or 5 tracks.

off to lunch, more later.

Mostly know them live and the only album of theirs I have is "Pass Me Not: Sacred Steel Guitars Vol 2" feat. Katie Jackson on vocals so I could only really recommend that one but the others are also supposed to be good.

checking their site they have some live mp3s available, www.campbellbrothers.com/multimedia.html

Search:

Dorthy Love -- "Just to Behold His Face"

Marion Williams -- "There's a Man"

Brother Joe May -- "Old Ship of Zion"

Sallie Martin Singers, Clara Ward, Bessie Griffin, etc.

I can recommend Davell Crawford though, he's a singer, piano player, and organ player out of New Orleans who sounds like Stevie for real.

I also love the old school stuff that New Orleans brass bands and trad bands play a la I'll Fly Away, Just a Closer Walk With Thee, Lord Lord Lord, etc. etc.

Also, if you ever see a record by a trombone shout choir, buy it!!!

You are Jason Pierce.

Yawn...more like the Ink Spots of Gospel harmony.

V

Other Music features Goodbye Babylon on their new updates page, including audio samples that sound just like American Primitive.

When God Dips His Pen of Love In My Heart. by Archie Brownlee and 5 Blind Boys of Miss.

it is weird to me that people aren't more into gospel - we're at a place where people will generally assert that subject matter is no barrier to enjoyment, that one can engage something on its own terms without subscribing to its tenets or signing off on its ideology - but here this branch of music, thinking specifically American gospel and mainly black gospel, gets almost no shine at all. People know about Kirk Franklin, which is great, but...why is this branch of music, from which so much great music flows, so neglected in contemporary discourse? Or is that not the case and I'm wrong, which isn't exactly unheard of I know but

there's been a bit of a revival in seventies gospel, spearheaded by erstwhile ilxor yetimike; he's compiled numerous compilatiosn for labels like mississippi & tompkins square, as well as releasing two compilations of jamaican gospel on his own label.

you also get things like numero group's gospel/funk comps.

i think the obvious answer to your question though is that while people claim a song's subject won't put them off, they are usually lying.

first post should read "revival of interest in"

p.s. i like gospel bluegrass cuz of that harmony singing

i think the obvious answer to your question though is that while people claim a song's subject won't put them off, they are usually lying.

I think that's right, and I think it's weird, you know? and could use unpacking. Black gospel is so important to American music, you can hardly even overstate how important! Just a few years back, R Kelly made You Saved Me -- it was tremendous, I interviewed Shirley Caesar for a piece I didn't end up writing and she spoke with admiration of 3-way Phone Call, but the title track was also amazing, Kelly's singing was some of his best ever throughout the album -- and a critical/listening audience that's quick to talk about "persona"/"narrative" when narrators are up to no good etc is like NOPE, I DRAW THE LINE AT JESUS, NOT INTERESTED. What I'm saying is listen to gospel you poseurs

i agree, tbh.
but i don't listen to really any contemporary gospel. i wouldn't know where to start.

but yeah, it's lame that ppl are unwilling to listen to dope music about god. i mean, whether you believe in god or not i think there's something to be said for the positive message & intrinsic hopefulness of gospel music

also the harmony singing.

like, how can you deny the soul stirrers or the staple singers or somethnig??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ8SKGNhcE0

I love a lot of gospel - black and white - but primarily from previous generations cuz I'm not so into the shiny pop aesthetic of more recent vintage. subject matter doesn't have much to do with it. will love the Soul Stirrers and the Louvins and the Staple Singers and Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Edwin Hawkins for all time tho

if we're gonna get strawmannish I think white non-Xtians probably feel some degree of creepy voyeurism about getting into a culture with which they share pretty much nothing

also they hate Jesus

since when have white non-christians felt weird about dilettantism?!

i mean... there are a lot of white suburban kids who listen to hip hop music, which is another culture with which they share pretty much nothing. or white guys into the blues, for that matter.

as well as releasing two compilations of jamaican gospel on his own label.

is there another? noah found grace slays, i would love to hear a follow up

i am not really up on contemporary gospel discourse either, but i wonder, is any aspect of gospel's status just due to a more porous definition between gospel & other contemporaneous black music, ie blues & bluegrass &c? because when i think about it i feel like it definitely 'exists', physically and as a kind of product - people are buying lonnie farris albums & i reckon country enthusiasts are buying dust 2 digital sets of old sanctified singing. but i don't know whether that's as a kind of spin-off of, like, eccentric old farout music & solo bluesmen, in which you can characterise washington phillips or lonnie farris as skip-james-type-dudes w/o specifically referring to genre.

just to throw another cent into the contemporary awareness of gospel survey that noone commissioned, it is worth mentioning kevin nutt & sinner's crossroads & his label casequarter here, too - i feel like they're playing a role both in service of the material, & being part of that community in a v present way, as well as being a place in which (old) gospel is seen in the context of like contemporary important music, ie next to noise shows on FMU. i know this doesn't answer 'why isn't gospel more visible', i'm just trying to get a handle on where exactly it sits now, & i feel like it probably/maybe is in 'old weird america' to some degree.

ian you can post as many youtubes like that as you want imo

hearing blind willie johnson and also tracing back roots of old soul stuff is where gospel got my attention, but tragically i've never dug a whole lot deeper. it's a shame. maybe because nobody really talks about it? and i didn't know which direction to look? i still vividly remember the first time i heard dorothy love coates sing, i about fell over!

alfred karnes recorded only 8 sides iirc but they are all pretty killer.

great GREAT post schlump (I find your posting on music really valuable quite often tbqf) - this:

i reckon country enthusiasts are buying dust 2 digital sets of old sanctified singing. but i don't know whether that's as a kind of spin-off of, like, eccentric old farout music & solo bluesmen

yeah - I remember being put off by the subtitle "raw & primitive gospel" on something recently that I think was a D2D release, but D2D gets a pass from me pretty much permanently because their stuff is so good and so beautiful. but like - there was this movement a few years ago, still current I think, to listen to contemporary country as pop music. gospel belongs at the table in the same move! Rich Mullins is one of the best songwriters of the last thirty years imo, and one of the most subtle thinkers about grace & God & all that stuff, and so gentle and clever in his thought - his best songs are just breathtaking little folk-pop pieces that happen to also be about really heavy topics that he addresses so adeptly I'll probably never get tired of it. ("Awesome God" is also his fault though.) but there's that "only if it's OUT THERE" thing with gospel: if it's not exotic, then it's not going to get ears. but Yolanda Adams has made incredible records & Carolyn Arends is real good & Sarah Groves can be super powerful...although another thing about gospel is that it doesn't lead, hardly ever. Kirk Franklin was an exception there, he was with the times at one point making records that'd play on the dance floor, and dance heads spun those records I think. Whereas these people I'm naming, if I play you their records, you'll think they're from '93 until the melodyne kicks in.

as well as releasing two compilations of jamaican gospel on his own label.

is there another? noah found grace slays, i would love to hear a follow up

the follow up is entitled "put no blame on the master" -- honest jon's has it on their website.

hey thank you aero that means a lot.

i think there are long convoluted arguments in the mississippi records threads basically about the delicate dynamics of wording sub-titles on these releases, & whether or not that eventually plays into 'otherness', or whether it's necessary to recontextualise for a wider audience or whatever, &c&c&c. it's fine i think ('primitive' is weird, but i've read Mike McG talk about gospel 'as punk', on some of the tompkins/social music releases, in which he argues for it not getting its dues as an obvious forerunner to all later DIY scenes - which it's kinda hard to argue against even if it's super different - & in which case primitive/raw/wild/crazy &c all make sense). D2D is almost the opposite i think! like they go to town on steeping the object in as much period ephemera and decor as they can find, like c'mon we know you don't want mp3 codes or colour sleeves on this thing.

you're way more up on contemporary country than me but this is where the invisible boundary separating gospel from just music generally comes in, i think - like i can't work out how similar contemporary gospel is to any of those christian subgenres of music, christian metal, groups & records that are identified by ethos & serve functionally for people who need a tailored version of that-kinda-thing, & that's the upfront thing about them. like i just can't see where new gospel sits, because it's going to be prejudicially auto-compartmentalised into a neat corner of the adult-contemporary market when someone hears it - 'oh, religious music' rather than 'how did they get that pedal steel sound'. i wouldn't have thought that lyrics would be such a huge determinant of that, but maybe religion's one of those lines that people can't see themselves crossing? it's like the people who said "oh i can't listen to frank ocean because he's not singing about my kind of relationships", or the idea that some kind of white-middle-classes-&-hip-hop thing couldn't ring true because of a lack of 'identification' (which obviously is stupid because we don't read for specifics we read for themes, & something nice about overcoming those barriers would be being able to bend a gospel song to our own will & use). i think this is the 'only if it's OUT THERE' thing - that we would need some other identifier to trump the religious thing & restore us to our anthropological listening. there are probably contemporary records, like all of those last johnny cash ones, that are certainly religious, i can't quite think how they're received by the audience - maybe in the way you would hope, which is that religion is just understood as a mark of the man & listened to for its passion & weight?

ty so much for that ian!, & for the distro info too. i am flagrantly going to order in a sec.

i really wanna find a link for this deacon james williams song on the This May Be The Last Time comp, for Shakey - it's sorta the most-recent previous-generation gospel i love, with whirly synths & a basic drum machine.

there are a lot of white suburban kids who listen to hip hop music, which is another culture with which they share pretty much nothing. or white guys into the blues, for that matter.

yeah but hip hop and blues code as transgressive/"bad" etc

i don't think the blues has been transgressive for white ppl for a looooooooong time imo.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/47261/afi-docs-2015/#mavis

Mavis! doc out now