Various Artists
Gospel music is nothing but singing of good tidings—spreading the news," singer Mahalia Jackson wrote in her autobiography. Jackson, whose grandparents worked in slavery on a Louisiana rice plantation, was born in New Orleans in 1911 in a shack sandwiched between railroad tracks (the trains rattled the windows) and the Mississippi River. She was never shy about crediting God for her great gospel voice. Whether a gift from on high or not, her singing was inspired, and in this 36-track second volume of her Columbia recordings (Columbia Legacy), covering 1954 to 1969, she belts with bluesy ferocity ("Walk in Jerusalem") and moans long and low on "I Want My Crown."
Jackson, who died in 1972, may have made her best recordings for the tiny Apollo label in Harlem from 1946 to 1953, before Columbia began popularizing her, but she spreads plenty of good tidings here.
The power of gospel to stir, celebrate, counsel and console shines through the three CDs of Jubilation (Rhino). Covering the five decades between 1929 and 1980, the set devotes two volumes to classics of black gospel and one to white country spirituals. The emphatic, harmony-saturated "jubilee" singing style favored by many male quartets consistently enlivens the black gospel discs. Standouts include rough-cut gems like the Heavenly Gospel Singers' "Heavenly Gospel Train," Julius Cheeks's towering lead on the Sensational Nightingales' "Burying Ground" and Paul Owens's powerhouse vocals on the Swan Silvertones' rousing "My Rock." (For more of this intricate vocalizing, a melodious forerunner of rap, check out Travelin' Shoes, the new RCA reissue of the Golden Gate Quartet's classic 1930s recordings.)
Volume three offers more restrained but no less moving hymns and songs by such giants of country music as the Carter Family and the Louvin Brothers, as well as contributions from Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Kitty Wells and others. Marking the CD debut of most of these titles, this collection is comprehensive, generously annotated and loaded with inspired performances.
Various Artists
As the soul music disc jockeys of yesteryear used to say, here's one that'll make your knees freeze and your liver quiver: A collection of lost soul nuggets from the late '60s and early '70s, each song lovingly plucked from obscurity by two of the genre's most devoted keepers of the flame, blues authority Peter Guralnick and Sire Records honcho and former Rolling Stone contributor Joe McEwen.
Gratefully, you won't find "Soul Man," "In the Midnight Hour" or any of the other overexposed baby-boomer anthems. Yet several of the cuts may be familiar to aficionados—among them "Some Kind of Wonderful" by the Soul Brothers Six, "Hold On (To What We've Got)" by James Carr, and Otis Clay's soul-shouter adaptation of "She's About a Mover," originally made famous by the Sir Douglas Quintet. Aretha Franklin, the only household name on the disc, checks in with "My Song," a gospel-tinged ballad that somehow got lost among her many hits.
But it's the songs that lack all recognition that stir the most: Percy Sledge's catchy "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road," O.V. Wright's heart-wrenching "Nickel and a Nail," Eddie Giles's funked-out "Losing Boy" and Laura Lee's coming-of-age plea "Separation Line." Maybe most memorable of all is "Crying in the Streets," recorded in 1971 by George Perkins and the Silver Stars, a disquieting supplication that could easily serve as a modern-day hymn for the dispossessed. (Sire)"
Garth Brooks
Old Garth often seems inordinately angst ridden for a country singer, and recently even toyed with the notion of hangin' up his hat for good. But not only has he not retired, this album may be more fun than anything he's done. He goes nearly gospel ("We Shall Be Free"). He recalls Patsy Cline (with a welcome version of the Alan Black—Don Hecht classic "Walking After Midnight"). He welcomes counterpart Trisha Yearwood for some harmonizing—though, unhappily, they never get around to a full-fledged duet. Garth goes cowboy ("Night Rider's Lament"). And he even yodels ("Dixie Chicken").
None of this sinks to the level of the Hank Jr. celebration of Bubba-tude found in Garth's "Friends in Low Places," on 1990's No Fences. Yet Brooks earns some smiles and establishes his versatility more solidly.
It may say something about Brooks's priorities that the credits for this album include as many people responsible for "merchandise" as for playing musical instruments. Even so, the results are a lot of fun to listen to, and Brooks finally sounds as if he's having a good time. Party on, Garth. (Liberty)
Texas Tornados
The Texas Tornados' third album is like a town populated with harmonious mixed marriages. Boisterous blues guitars trade licks with mincing conjunto accordions; a Dylan ballad is reinvented as a waltz and crooned bilingually; a thumping reggae bass grooves with a mariachi trumpet.
All of this is the work of longtime Tex-Mex troubadours Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers, Flaco Jimenez and Freddy Fender, four potbellied grandads who were astonished by the success of their 1990 debut, Texas Tornados. Their most successful songs are hybrids of Latin and gringo, as in the bawdy "Guacamole" and the breezy "La Grande Vida."
They're not quite as much fun when they alternate pure rock tunes with pure conjunto, as they do too often on Hangin' On. The title track is an all-American rocker with preposterous lyrics, beginning as an angry lover's tirade and inexplicably dissolving into a tribute to the Grateful Dead. It is rescued by two no-brakes guitar solos delivered by Sahm's son, Shawn, while the old man shouts, "That's m'boy!" This is followed by "Tus Mentiras" ("Your Lies"), a romantic Spanish tearjerker. Both songs are good, but together they're like a bacon cheeseburger followed by a plate of burritos.
Still, heartburn is a small price to pay for the pleasures of a band that can hold its own on both sides of the Rio Grande. (Reprise)
- Contributors:
- Lisa Shea,
- Tim Whataker,
- Ralph Novak,
- Charles A. Hirshberg.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
