Thank goodness, Jim Weatherly, the big chief crosses the ts and dots the is.
Just beautiful stuff with no apologies.
If you'll pardon the expression . . . amen! :) I hadn't really heard the Statesmen Quartet until you
posted that. I'll have to look for more of their stuff.
I have to admit---I
have had a thing for black gospel music since my boyhood; when my family
moved out to Long Island from the Bronx, I used to pass by a couple of old-fashioned storefront
churches and I'd be transfixed by the music just as I was by good rock and roll, blues, jazz, etc.
I only learned later how much of the soul music I loved was inspired directly by the rhythms
and call-and-response vocal styles of the black churches. I loved it as much as I loved the
music in my boyhood synagogue and the pealing of the chimes from the nearby Catholic
church every afternoon at 5 p.m.; to this day I can hear those chimes in my mind even though
I haven't lived there in so many decades. And I can still hear my synagogue choir chanting and
singing so ethereally.
When I first heard the Soul Stirrers, I got immediately where vocal groups like the Temptations
and the Impressions came from. I didn't get on to the Mighty Clouds of Joy until much later. But
I sure didn't have to be told that the Chambers Brothers had gospel roots, I was taken to one of
their concerts in New York after "Time Has Come Today" became a big hit and you could feel the
gospel in their singing and playing. Last year, I was given a copy of the box set containing the 5
Royales' complete recordings and was shocked to realise
they'd done a lot of straight-up
gospel early in their career. I'd loved their rhythm and blues but hearing them writing and singing
gospel was, pardon the expression, a revelation.
This is the set:
. . . and this is the 5 Royales when they were first known as the Royal Sons Quintet and singing
gospel (they changed the group name when they moved away from gospel to become early
R&B pioneers) . . .
! No longer available! No longer available! No longer available
