Today's Gospel Playlist

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Worship & Faith -- CD

Randy Travis

2003 Word Entertainment

It Doesn't Get Much Better Than This!, January 5, 2004
ByRTFan (Oklahoma City, OK United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Worship & Faith (Audio CD)

This is the third release of gospel music from Randy and, once again, there are no disappointments. It is a treasure to add to the growing collection of treasures from this wonderful artist! There are classic old traditional favorites as well as some newer praise and worship songs. This CD is beautifully done, and I can't stop playing it! There are 20 songs so it plays a long time!

I have loved Randy Travis since 1988 and have loved the Lord a whole lot longer than that! And to hear that wonderful voice singing such special music is one of the greatest blessings of my entire life! And to know that he means every word he is singing makes it priceless! It's country and gospel at the same time...and it doesn't get much better than this!

"He's My Rock, My Sword, My Shield" (Traditional) – 2:30
"Farther Along" (J.R. Baxter, W.B. Stevens) – 3:39
"How Great Thou Art" (Stuart K. Hine) – 4:29
"Just a Closer Walk with Thee" (Traditional) – 4:37
"Shall We Gather at the River?" (Robert Lowry) – 3:16
"You Are Worthy of My Praise" (David Ruis) – 4:18
"Love Lifted Me" (James Rowe, Howard Smith) – 3:11
"Softly and Tenderly" (Will L. Thompson) – 3:19
"Sweet By and By"(Sanford Filmore Bennett, Joseph Philbrock Webster) – 2:27
"Blessed Assurance" (Fanny J. Crosby, Phoebe Knapp) – 3:28
"I'll Fly Away" (Albert E. Brumley) – 2:59
"Turn Your Radio On" (Brumley) – 2:37
"Open the Eyes of My Heart" (Paul Baloche) – 3:55
"In the Garden" (C. Austin Miles) – 3:21
"Above All" (Baloche, Lenny LeBlanc) – 4:14
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" (Charles Gabriel, Ada R. Habershon) – 3:08
"We Fall Down" (Chris Tomlin) – 3:40
"Peace in the Valley" (Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey) – 3:58
"The Unclouded Day" (Josiah K. Alwood) – 2:56
"Room at the Cross for You" (Ira Stanphill) – 1:30
 
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Believe -- DVD-Audio

Aaron Neville

2002 Silverline/EMI Gospel

BELIEVE was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album.Aaron Neville's is an angel's voice contained within the body of a dockworker (which he once was), and it turns out to be perfect for gospel. BELIEVE is the New Orleans native's second full-length release of religious material. Teaming with noted Muscle Shoals session cat Barry Beckett, Neville delivers an interesting slate of material that finds him rejoicing in his faith without becoming preachy. Original material is sprinkled throughout, including the smooth, acoustic-guitar-driven "Let Go," and "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus" with its robust brass arrangements. Otherwise, Neville is priming the pump for other people's material. Among the notable songs included are a casual reading of Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer," a vibrant remake of the Edwin Hawkins Singers 1969 gospel-pop crossover smash "Oh Happy Day," and a punchy cover of Hank Williams's "I Saw The Light" featuring The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Other highlights include a reading of Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody," (whose original version also featured Beckett.), a goosebump-inducing "Ava Maria," and a picture-perfect "A Change Is Gonna Come.

Track Listings
1. Steer Me Right
2. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
3. I Believe
4. If I Had A Hammer
5. Gotta Serve Somebody
6. Oh Happy Day
7. Ave Maria
8. Let Go
9. What A Friend We Have In Jesus
10. A Change Is Gonna Come
11. I Saw The Light (featuring The Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
12. Going Home
13. Amazing Grace
14. With God On Our Side (Bonus Track)

Personnel: Aaron Neville (vocals); Wardell Quezengue (conductor); Blue Miller (acoustic guitar); Dean Parks, Shane Theriot (electric guitar); Judith Armistead, Burton Callahan (violin); Lauren Lemmier, Richard Woehrle (viola); Jonathan Gerhardt (cello); Jim Horn (alto saxophone, baritone saxophone); Sam Levine (tenor saxophone); Steve patrick (trumpet, flugelhorn); Chris Dunn (trombone); The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (horns); John Jarvis (piano, keyboards); Jim Cox (Wurlitzer piano, Hammond B-3 organ); Michael Rhodes (bass); Eddie Bayers (drums); Mark Beckett (percussion); Alvin Chea, Jim Gilstrap, Phil Perry, Darryl Phinnessee, Maxi Anderson, Alex Brown, Jacquelyn Gouche, Sandtown Childrens Choir (background vocals).
 
Got this amazing, 9 disc box set. It's a review of the Peacock/Duke label but due to legal reasons, they couldn't name it as such. It was put together by the great Opal Nations...

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Rivers of delight American folk hymns from the Sacred Harp tradition
by Word of Mouth Chorus. LP recording New York : Nonesuch, 1979.
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Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers - The Colored Sacred Harp New World Records CD 1995
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The Colored Sacred Harp: A Review
American Music 14 (Spring 1996), pp. 127-28.
The Colored Sacred Harp. Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers. Notes by Barbara L. Hampton. 1993. Recorded Anthology of American Music, New World Records NW 80433-2.

The Sacred Harp, by B.F. White and E.J. King, is the chief printed repository for the living tradition and repertory of early American psalmody. Available in several editions and revisions since its first printing in 1844, the book unites most southern singers, black and white, who cultivate the tunebook tradition, as well as enthusiasts throughout North America who are drawn to its distinctive sound, repertory, and performance practice. Writers on the Sacred Harp have noted the participation of African Americans in that tradition, chiefly in southeast Alabama and northern Florida. While they sing mainly from the Cooper Revision of The Sacred Harp, these black songsters employ seven-shape songbooks on occasion, and also a four-shape tunebook of local origin, The Colored Sacred Harp (1934) by Judge Jackson (1883-1958), which has been available in reprint since 1973.

Previous studies of this book and its author have treated them as a special case within a predominantly Anglo-American genre (“Black Giant of White Spirituals”) or as evidence of a unique homespun musical creativity (“Plantation Meistersinger”). In her musical and sociological study of shape-note singers in the area, Doris Dyen (1977) paid scant attention to The Colored Sacred Harp, because its use is indeed marginal. While a handful of songs have become standards within the community, most of the book lies unused, except at the annual Jackson Memorial Singing in April. Singers regard Jackson’s book more as a source of community pride than as a source of active repertory.

The goal of the present recording is not to reflect the singers’ tastes and repertory—it includes pieces solely from Jackson’s book. The accompanying essay, by Barbara L. Hampton, subtitled “A Songbook by Nineteenth-Century African-Americans,” serves as a valuable supplement and corrective to earlier treatments. The historical section attempts to provide an Afrocentric context for Sacred Harp singing, showing “the process by which African Christians adopted the Sacred Harp and made it a significant artistic expression in their communities.” In exploring this process, Hampton examines differential settlement and land ownership patterns in the Gulf Coast and Tennessee Valley regions. While she acknowledges “research conducted by Cheryl Johnson in Alabama” (p. 6), this research is nowhere fully cited, nor is it clear how the 1856 sale of illegally-imported Africans to Selma planters affected the assimilation of Sacred Harp singing in southeastern Alabama. Drawing on oral history, Hampton documents the role of black and white singing-masters in passing on a tradition of musical style and literacy that nourished the creativity not only of Judge Jackson but of several other composers represented in The Colored Sacred Harp. Biographical sketches of these composers represent a significant addition to the story of this singing community.

The group of singers on the recording is small, and better represents the “Wiregrass Singers” that perform at concerts, festivals, and on television, rather than a typical “class” at an all-day singing. The sound, while rather thin, is dominated by altos, who number seven of the seventeen voices. It is instructive to compare the strong and confident rhythms on this recording with their rather inaccurate representation on the pages of Jackson’s tunebook—this suggests that the performance by Jackson’s own descendants and community represents the compiler’s musical conception better than the often inconsistent and inept notation in the book. The small size of the ensemble also enables the listener to hear clearly the embellishments and variations that are a feature of this regional style.

Those who are looking for a representative recording of African American Sacred Harp singing would do well to hear Wiregrass Notes: Black Sacred Harp Singing from Southeast Alabama (Alabama Traditions 102), produced by Hank Willett and Doris Dyen. This collection, recorded in 1982 at a two-day convention in Dale County, features four selections from The Colored Sacred Harp, nine from The Sacred Harp, and one seven-shape selection by Albert M. Brumley, sung from memory as a closing piece. For those who own one of the reprint editions of The Colored Sacred Harp, or are interested in its author or his music, the present recording represents a fitting and almost necessary complement, providing both the sonic dimension and the historical background to the music and the community that gave it life.

David Warren Steel
University of Mississippi
A fair amount of The Sacred Harp titles are in minor or modal scales (e.g., the hymntune "Wondrous Love" sung in the Dorian mode) and gapped scales (e.g., the pentatonic "Amazing Grace").
 
I'm not sure if it's kosher to post links to music purchases here, so I'll just tell you PopMarket has the Designer Label Gospel Box set for not a lot of dough. Just to get you droolin' I'll post part of the review. Hurry if interested, I think they don't last long.
What’s astonishing is how seamlessly this set’s 101 songs by dozens of groups and solo acts lock together. That’s due to more than the unbridled sound of pure faith welling up in the varied voices of such largely obscure performers as Elizabeth King, who wails like Aretha on “Testify for Jesus,” and Rev. Leon Hammer, who howls like Blind Willie Johnson on “He Won’t Deny Me.” Many of these numbers share a badass, wild-eyed energy — the same primitive, reverb-soaked mojo that drives the classic Memphis rockabilly, garage rock and blues that was Janes’ specialty. The protean roots rocker also plays guitar on many of these sides, drawing on a do-it-all trick bag of riffs that range from needlepoint blues licks ’n’ leads to funky James Brown-style strumming to bristling country bends to unrepentant power chords.
 
I'm not sure if it's kosher to post links to music purchases here, so I'll just tell you PopMarket has the Designer Label Gospel Box set for not a lot of dough. Just to get you droolin' I'll post part of the review. Hurry if interested, I think they don't last long.
What’s astonishing is how seamlessly this set’s 101 songs by dozens of groups and solo acts lock together. That’s due to more than the unbridled sound of pure faith welling up in the varied voices of such largely obscure performers as Elizabeth King, who wails like Aretha on “Testify for Jesus,” and Rev. Leon Hammer, who howls like Blind Willie Johnson on “He Won’t Deny Me.” Many of these numbers share a badass, wild-eyed energy — the same primitive, reverb-soaked mojo that drives the classic Memphis rockabilly, garage rock and blues that was Janes’ specialty. The protean roots rocker also plays guitar on many of these sides, drawing on a do-it-all trick bag of riffs that range from needlepoint blues licks ’n’ leads to funky James Brown-style strumming to bristling country bends to unrepentant power chords.

Bought it, thx.
 
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Blessed Quietness - A Collection of Hymns, Spirituals and Carols:Cyrus Chestnut



By JASON R. LAIPPLY, Published: October 1, 1997

In the famous 1980 cult film classic The Blues Brothers, Curtis (Cab Calloway) suggests that Jake and Elwood Blues "slide on down to the Triple Rock, and check out the Rev. Cleophus." When Jake resists the suggestion, Curtis snaps "Jake, you get wise...you get to church!" Jake and Elwood heed wise Curtis's advice and are saved. Today's generation of jazz musicians seem to have heeded Curtis' advice as well. Several heavily church influenced projects have hit the jazz shelves over the last few years, with examples of the best being Wynton Marsalis' extended composition In This House, On This Morning, Charlie Haden & Hank Jones' excellent album of spirituals Steal Away, and now Cyrus Chestnut's Blessed Quietness.

For Blessed Quietness (subtitled A Collection Of Hymns, Spirituals and Carols ), Chestnut returns to the Baptist roots of his upbringing, where (he states in the liner notes) he was first exposed to music. In tackling this set of religious classics, Chestnut also chooses to return to solo performing, opting to try for a more individually expressive experience with the music.

Does it work? Hallelujah! While Chestnut's arrangements are at times unconventional, his deep understanding of, and respect for, these songs allows him to bring some of his immense musical training to the table without losing the essence of these wonderful songs. His choice to do a variety of hymns and carols, as well as a few spirituals, keeps the disc from getting too formal, and yet keeps the religious theme constant. His talent as a pianist also adds to the mix, allowing him to flow easily from quick runs to majestic chords. Overall, this disc has the feel of a Sunday afternoon's family entertainment in a traditional Southern parlor, with a family member performing old favorites with just a touch of jazz.

Highlights for the disc will vary from listener to listener depending upon personal preference and religious conservatism. "Amazing Grace" gets a very unique treatment, as does "Holy, Holy, Holy." "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" is gorgeously done, as are "Walk With Me Jesus" and "Jesus Loves Me." "We Three Kings" begins dark and slow before picking up, only to fade back.. Chestnut's version would make an excellent soundtrack to the Magi's journey across the night time desert. "Silent Night" begins with a light, twinkling feel providing a simplicity and pureness that match the song's subject.

Blessed Quietness is a deeply personal album for Cyrus Chestnut, and therefore, a deeply refreshing one for the jazz listener. Much like Jones and Haden with Steal Away, Chestnut has taken a group of songs that already mean a great deal to the listener, and attempts to share what they mean to him. Putting his faith, heritage, and musical talent on full display, Chestnut proves himself the type of musician who is unafraid to strive for direct communication. And with his unique arrangements of several of the pieces, he proves himself a man unafraid to push towards the new.

With success that has grown steadily over the last four years, Cyrus Chestnut has been able to get to a position where he could record a disc such as this, and have it exposed to a large audience. The fact that he took such an opportunity to record this record would make Curtis and the Rev. Cleophus proud.

Highly recommended - 4 Stars (Out of 5) ****

Track Listing:

Over My Head; Jesus Loves Me; We Three Kings; Walk With Me Jesus; Silent Night; Amazing Grace; The Old Rugged Cross; Holy, Holy, Holy; The First Noel; Blessed Quietness; What A Friend We Have In Jesus; Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child (55:20)=20

Personnel:

Cyrus Chestnut - Piano.

Record Label: Atlantic Jazz
 
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Songs for Christmas: Silent Night, an Album by Mahalia Jackson. Released in
1962 on Columbia (catalog no. CS 8703)​
So nice I played it twice

AllMusic Review by Dennis MacDonald
Whether or not you like sacred vocal music, one cannot help but be moved by the power and passion with which Mahalia Jackson sings "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" and the spiritual "Go Tell it on the Mountain." Her rendition of "Silent Night, Holy Night" is simply inspirational.
 
The Designer box set is all of it. Have to share one cut right now...country, soul, blues, gospel...just as cool as can be.
 
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