VARIOUS ARTISTS- Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music & Photography 1890-1950 (Dust-To-Digital) & VARIOUS ARTISTS-Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare + Otherworldly African-American Gospel [1944-2007] (Tomkins Square)
Growing up in Atlanta as a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s, it seemed like the soul of gospel permeated the culture of the South. Even as a white kid growing up in a mixed-race neighborhood in Dekalb County, it seemed like gospel music was everywhere, from the Sacred Harp singing at my grandmother’s church and the Holy Rollers whose services would frequently spill out onto the sidewalks next to my neighborhood’s grocery store to the massive immersion baptisms we’d stumble onto at Stone Mountain’s lake and the church services that dominated local TV stations every Sunday morning.
The sage Joni Mitchell (or was it Cinderella?) once sang “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” and as the South’s cultural paradise was paved over with parking lots and high rises, gospel music on the whole became a slicker and more polished beast. But these two excellent compilations– one from Atlanta’s premiere boutique label, Dust-To-Digital, the other benefiting the New Orleans Musician Relief Fund– pay tribute to the raw, traditional gospel that permeated the fabric of my childhood, accurately summarizing the music form’s past century of evolution in the process.
You can read elsewhere in this issue about Dust-To-Digital’s impeccable reputation, and Take Me To the Water is yet another in the local label’s uninterrupted stream of exceptional releases. Already nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Historical Release category, the exquisite package offers 25 tracks of gospel music recorded between 1924 and 1940 as well as a gorgeous book featuring vintage photos and informative essays.
Opening with “Baptize Me,” featuring Atlanta’s Rev. J.M. Gates backed by his congregation, Take Me To The Water captures the unbridled passion and power of songs sung purely in the spirit of praise. There’s a broad representation of the gospel sound here, from the bluesy influences of Washington Phillips’ “Denomination Blues Part I” and the Appalachian country of the Carter Family’s “On My Way To Canaan’s Land” to the barbershop approach of the Southern Wonders Quartet’s “Go Wash In The Beautiful Stream” and the Western sound of Bill Boyd & His Cowboy Ramblers’ “Sister Lucy Lee.” Partnered with the book’s vintage immersion baptism photographs and essays by Jim Linderman and Luc Sante, it’s easy to see why the set is up for a Grammy.
Equally impressive both in scope and style (with Art Direction by Atlanta’s Susan Archie, a frequent DTD collaborator), Tomkins Square’s Fire In My Bones is a 3-CD set designed to collect some of the more neglected sounds of black gospel music recorded between the genre’s post-WWII heyday and the present. Produced by Mike McGonigal, the compilation veers among various gospel traditions, from solo performances to congregational recordings to hellfire-and-brimstone sermons that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It also veers from major label tracks to field recordings and from rural Georgia to urban California, showcasing the sheer diversity of the gospel sound.
From The Phillips’ Specials’ furiously funky “I’m A Soldier” and Precious Bryant’s folk-blues take on “When the Saints Go Marching In” to the Georgia Fife & Drum Band’s bizarrely militaristic “Why Sorrow Done Passed Me Around” and Grant & Ella’s version of the slave-era spiritual “John Saw,” the Peach State is well represented among the 80 awesome tracks collected here. But if there’s one central message that both of these killer compilations convey, it’s that it ain’t about where you’re from so much as it is where you’re going after you’re gone. – BRET LOVE
(Originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)
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