"people get ready" - Rod Stewart "Amazing Grace" - Jessye Norman 2009 "Duets" - Five Blind Boys of Alabama, The - entire CD 1988 "Sweet Fellowship" - Acappella, the entire CD
In 1989 I was working in NJ, I may have been the only guy on the job who did not know he was working for the Irish Mafia. I would lend people the CD "Sweet Fellowship" and they were willing to pay for it but never return it:
"Here is $20 kid, go buy yourself another cuz youz can’t have mine back. Now don’t ever ask me again."
Before Buddy & Julie Miller were recording and performing together, Julie had a career as a Contemporary Christian artist. I have her Meet Julie Miller album on the Myrrll label.
Iris Dement was raised in a Pentecostal home, and her albums are filled with Christian themes and references. The Christian Right did not take well to her criticism of GWB (give a listen to her "Wasteland Of The Free"). Her Lifeline is a Gospel album, and if you haven’t heard her sing, when you do you will see why Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, and Joan Osborne are big fans of hers, as was John Prine, with whom she collaborated and toured.
So am I; I saw her live in a smallish theater just before the pandemic shut down social gatherings. She told some great stories, including one involving John. She’s much funnier than you would expect, very self-deprecating.
I recorded an album with a real good Christian songwriter in 1975-6, which remains unreleased. I have the master tapes (I engineered), if anyone wants to put it out ;-) . He employed the chord progression, and melodies and harmonies of J.S. Bach, Mozart, and Brian Wilson as fodder for his songs. One spooky one is entitled "Who'll Be Ready For The Big Surprise?"
If you are not familiar with The Louvin Brothers, check their "Satan is real" album, listen to the lyrics, and when you are done with it, read about them. Preferably in that order. Just the album cover is worth the price of admission. Don’t get me wrong, it is some fine spiritual country music. It is quite brilliant.
This is from Wikipedia (quote from elsewhere, though)...
Mark Deming stated in his AllMusic review: "You don’t need to share the Louvin Brothers’ spiritual beliefs to be moved by the grace, beauty and lack of pretension of this music; Satan Is Real is music crafted by true believers sharing their faith, and its power goes beyond Christian doctrine into something at once deeply personal and truly universal, and the result is the Louvin Brothers’ masterpiece."
"There is a reason why songs from this album have been performed by the more commonly accepted genius of artists such as Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris."
A truly great masterwork is Brahms "German Requiem"
In some interesting twist, unlike most if not all of the Requiem compositions, Brahms’ Requiem is not a lithurgical work. It is still spiritual, though.
Yeah, I spent lots of my disposable income on Christian rock and pop in the 80’s and the first half of the 90’s, before the music industry had its shake up. That music helped me stay centered on the big picture, I guess you’d say.
Special mention to Jon Gibson, who broke into the industry as a back up singer for Stevie Wonder(sounds like him even). He was a pop genius back then.
Speaking of which Stevie Wonder had many songs with religious themes. Heaven is 10 Zillion Light Years Away, Heaven Help Us All. Even Superstition, waking people up to the stupidity of superstition.
More recently, Tom Jones did an album called "Praise and Blame", which is jaw droppingly good. Many Christian themes, from an outsider, maybe.
Johnny Cash had several albums with American Recording company before he passed away. You want to get some insomnia, listen to the song "The Man Comes Around", and then think about Covid:
The hairs on your arm will stand up At the terror in each sip, and in each sup Will you partake of that last offered cup? Or disappear into the potter’s ground When the Man comes around
And continuing in the country vein, Martina Mcbride. She’s got one of the best voices in country, and when you hear, "Anyway", you can’t help but believe in a higher power:
This world’s gone crazy, and it’s hard to believe That tomorrow will be better than today, Believe it anyway
Brooks and Dunn also did a great song called, Believe, that is in the vein of christian themes. I’m sure many country artists have some of that in their catalogs.
Edit: Oh, for old school straight up black gospel, might as well go straight to the source, Andrae Crouch. He toured for several years refusing to record anything because he didn't want the music industry to influence his efforts. The first song I ever heard of his was when I was a small kid, and it's stuck with me my whole life, look up Through it All.
This is full on religious music, and I am less than devout. For some reason these two Soul Stirrers albums are incredible: I’d Trade A Lifetime(1974) and The Lord Will Make A Way(1976), both on Jewel Records. They are pretty famous for having such artists as Sam Cooke and Johnny Taylor as their lead singers, but at this point in time it was Eddie Huffman. For some reason his conviction and soulful singing keeps me engaged for hours on end. Not in a spiritual sense per se, but his voice is incredible. Here are some samples:
@wsrrsw, that's some good stuff right there those Holmes Brothers. Our church, mostly white, from time to time, holds services with a church across town, mostly black. Each of our churches is a bit of a stereotype. We are uptight white people. Our main service is very traditional. Traditional hymns. Big pipe organ. The quality of our choir and organist is top notch. I mean seriously good. Their church is much more soulful for lack of a better word. Just what you'd imagine. Band with drums and bass, organ player, hoppin' choir. The quality of their music is also top notch. I love our music, but I like it much better when we worship with them at their church than when they come to ours. Good gospel music with an actively participating congregation is a wonderful thing!
@bigwave , no, the recording I referred to is in stereo. It was originally released in 1981 on a digitally mastered LP.
BTW, I noticed after I posted that the Wikipedia writeup on Gothic Voices states that "A Feather on the Breath of God" "remains one of the best-selling recordings of pre-classical music ever made."
Many pre-war artists were amazing. Blind Willie Johnson Blind Gary Davis Washington Phillips there are several more amazing pre-war gospel artists. I think gospel takes a turn for the worse as the decades go by. It slowly becomes Jesus for dollars.
I would suggest "A Feather on the Breath of God; Sequences and Hymns by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen" (born 1098; died 1179). Performed by "Gothic Voices" under the direction of Christopher Page, and featuring Emma Kirkby, soprano, among others. Engineered by Tony Faulkner.
I have it on LP, Hyperion A66039, which may be unavailable. But a CD version is available at Amazon.
yes love Bob Dylan Saved and Slow Train those albums are great
i saw Blind Boys of Alabama about 10 years ago as they opened for Dr John I have never been to church but the BBA show was like I assumed a southern baptist church would be like They put on a fantastic gospel tinged show plUs they were all in their 80’s
I'm not a big church goer but a friend said try City Church in Redmond and I went a couple times. First time the band came out to play I thought oh no here we go but then was really pleasantly surprised. Impressed, even. Quality musicianship, quality performance. Even the sound quality was quite good. This in a church with probably several hundred in attendance. Packed.
As I say I don't go much and so the next time I went was more than a year later. The church had outgrown and moved to the valley where there was a lot of land by the golf course. The parking lot was so big they had shuttle buses. The church was so big they had three giant TV screens each one a good 20 feet high and from where we were you needed the screen. The place felt more like a sports coliseum or concert hall than a church. I mean it was huge. And packed.
Its not a phase. The phase if anything would appear to be the time of thinking eternal truths will go away simply because you turn your back on them.
@slaw Good call on the Audio Slave song. Its one of my favorites by them. Lots of religious imagery but not sure what the actual message was. Like a Stone also has a lot of religious imagery. I always thought Cornell was so so talented.
@artemus_5 There was a Christian rock band in the 80's called The Resurrection Band. Not sure if it was "metal" but fairly hard. I saw them perform and they rocked. Not sure if you can even find their music anymore or if they are still around:
My favorite Led Zeppelin song is In My Time of Dying. A bit of an irreverent take on dying featuring Jesus, angels and, I think the devil but I don't remember if he makes an appearance or not.....he's implied if nothing else.
I can’t believe Dylan’s Slow Train Coming, Saved, and Shot Of Love haven’t already been mentioned.
Aretha Franklin: Songs Of Faith. Recorded in 1956 in a Baptist church in Detroit (Aretha was 14 years old!), originally released on J-V-B Records, rereleased in ’65 (with extra tracks) in ’65 on Checker Records.
Larry Norman was a very well-known figure in the Christian Rock movement (and may still be). He made a bunch of albums, and if his name sounds familiar (unless you’re from San Jose or are a Rock historian, I doubt it ;-), he was one of the two lead singers in the 1960’s 1-hit wonder group People, known for their cover of The Zombies "I Love You".
Ritchie Furay of Buffalo Springfield and Poco also went Christian, making a fair number of albums for the Christian Rock market.
Almost all the music composed by J.S. Bach is of a spiritual nature, much of it written to be performed at his day job, a church organist.
Consider choral music from great Elizabethans: Thomas Tallis: especially the 40 part harmony - sounds like science fiction, even today - imagine what it must have been like for the Elizabethans William Byrd: Masses for 3,4 and 5 voices
I started listening to Christian rock in the mid 80's. It took a while to find anything good in 1983-84 because they store employees didn't understand what Christian rock was and I din't know it was "contemporary" Oh well, I finally discovered Petra, Stryper, DeGarmo & Key, The Allies, White Cross, Larry Howard, Mylon Lefevre, Bryan Duncan and many others. Some quite obscure ones were good too. And they are actually recorded pretty good. I quit listening to new stuff in the '90'ss whern alternative took over and music seemed to be hopeless. And I don't know the bands today. Festivals like Cornerstone, C too.reation and now defunct Fishnet were great venues
@n80Like you I don't care for the music on Christian radio. never really have but maybe even less today. In the 70's & 80's it was different.Today its big business. many artists like Don Francisco and Sterve Camp, et al got out of it because of that very thing. kerry Livgren said he couldn't see any difference between recording his Kansas and Christian albums. But pushed for product. Oh well,
not long ago I would have said it was the worst music of all. It wasn't good pop. It wasn't good gospel. No catchy tunes. Overly emotional and sentimental. Shallow and vapid. And that always makes me a little sad, as a Christian
Their version of “John the Revelator”, while not a cappella, is a show stopper. The version from their 2000 “Live from Mountain Stage” CD is a favorite speaker demo selection of mine. If you don’t think you like the Fairfield Four, try that cut before you rule them out.
On the Ry Cooder soundtrack CD from 1986 “Crossroads” is a blues (once gospel) funeral dirge “Somebody’s Callin’ My Name” sometimes titled “Hush hush…” Jessey Norman also performs this song on one of her CDs. When I die that song is what I want played at my funeral entrance.
On the soundtrack from “The Color Purple” is a song worth your time titled “Maybe God Is Tryin’ to Tell You Somethin’”.
If secular music demonstrates the diversity of the human race so does religious music even more so. On 1992 “Blues Masters, Vol. 04; Harmonica Classics” is Charlie Musselswhite’s hymn “Christo Redemptor”. By any measure it is excellent recording of amazing music.
There was a time forty years ago I when I lived in Gallup NM,
a small town in the middle of nowhere with only 4 radio stations. One station was all in Navajo, one was
rock/pop, one was Country and the last was Gospel format. Yes the quality of the Gospel genre was not
what one might hope and I listened to very little of it then. It was explained to me that since most
listeners listen in their vehicle and only for a few minutes it was perfectly
acceptable to play the song “9 to 5” twice and hour all day long.
I have a recollection of driving across all of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas on a Sunday in
August steering a badly over loaded 24’ Ryder truck towing my pickup behind me.
Maximum speed may have been 50 mph, no
AC and only an AM radio. Under those
conditions the only acoustic selections were not so much religious as what I
would call “red neck toothless gospel”. My
yellow Lab named Bismark was riding shotgun, so we turned up the “Old time
Gospel” and Bismark and I had our personal revival the width of all of 3 states combined.
I agree with your general point, that the quality and variety
of religious music is vastly improved.
Twila Paris, Phil Driscol, David Meece, John Fahey are
examples of those who write and perform as well as anyone. Many C&W acts
have worthwhile religious content in their repertoire.
^^^Van Morrison went through a Christian phase for a while. He has quite a few popular religious songs. These are the Days is another one. Some folks hear some Christian themes in Astral Weeks, but I think you can hear anything you want to in that album.
All Bach.
U2's albums are suffused with Christian themes. Bono says he is a devout Christian.
For some spectacular R&B/Gospel check out Leon Bridges album Coming Home. It is not a religious or gospel album per se but there are three of four excellent songs with Christian themes. On some of them you have to listen carefully to hear them. The songs are fantastic as is the whole album. The theology is deep and solid without being cheesy or in-your-face. This one, River, is probably the best and deepest:
I am a devout Christian but other than classical, traditional hymns and a few I've mentioned here, I do not particularly like religious music. Especially religious pop music. Several of you have mentioned above that it has gotten better, and that is good. Because not long ago I would have said it was the worst music of all. It wasn't good pop. It wasn't good gospel. No catchy tunes. Overly emotional and sentimental. Shallow and vapid. And that always makes me a little sad, as a Christian. As millercarbon mentioned, western religious music was, at one time, the highest level or artistic expression in music. And it might still be.
Van Morrison: "In The Garden", "Whenever God Shines His Light On Me",
“When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God?",
“If I Ever Needed Someone”. There are others.
Definitely much less than devout here. But I do listen to a lot of Christian rock and metal, Probably not quite what you had in mind though. Bands like Skillet, Stryper , Barren Cross, Angelica, Rez, Angie Lewis.
A fave of mine: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Salzburger Kirchenmusik 1774 Gema Records 1985 Carus 83.103 CD
Wonderful choral music!
BTW, I tried to return my Fairfield Four album to Best Buy and get my money back. The clerk asked what was wrong with it. I said: "The title says Fairfield Four but there are five people on the cover. It's obviously defective!". Didn't get my money back...
Rock and roll arguably evolved from gospel. Without gospel music there wouldn’t be Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, or James Brown - for example. So many of the country blues guitarists (eg Mississippi John Hurt) were essentially playing their twists on gospels. This music was a point of reference for these genres to expand on - this is what people knew.
Released in time for Christmas 2019, I enjoy Andrew Bird's "Hark!"
RE: The Fairfield
Four, "Standing In The Safety Zone". And you thought you knew
something about a capella gospel singing...
I needed to leave something else for other folks like you to
contribute. You may want to look up also
“Sweet Honey in the Rock” in particular 1988 “Live at Carnegie Hall”. The songs
“Run, Run, Mourner Run” and “Wade in the Water” will kill ya.
I don’t own the entire Fairfield Four catalogue, but I own a
decent sampling. Not to neglect the “the
Dixie Hummingbirds”but technically they are not a capella. Neither is “Mighty Clouds of Joy” but they get
the job done.
& Thank you Oregonpapa for recommending: Kathleen Battle
"So Many Stars.", I have a few of her CDs but not that one. (add to
my orders.)
I was looking for Oh Happy Day, Edwin Hawkins Singers. But it slipped my ADD mind.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo will sometimes include a Gospel
tune.
O Sifuni
Mungu (All Creatures of Our God and King) is worth looking up. The original was done by “First Call”
Hezekiah Walker had a run away hit with his danceable song
“Every Praise” which drew many imitators from Korea
and Japan
some of which are rater funny.
I collect gospel and CCM from the 1960s through the 1980s. Most specifically everything released on Word Records and all their sub-labels. This casts a very wide genre net, perhaps outside the intention of the OP.
In the traditional sense of religious music I would suggest "Spirituals In Concert" featuring Kathleen Battle & Jesse Norman. This album is in my, "If I had to pick 10 CDs to take with me to be be stranded on a desert island" list.
The Gospel category is wide and deep, but for people unfamiliar and looking for variety I strongly suggest Shirley Cesar’s album "Rejoice", especially the track, "Satan You’re a Liar".
For 80’s mainstream contemporary christian music definitely listen to Jon Gibson, any album will do, his Hits compilation that came out in 1991 is a good entry point.
For artist cross over albums Dylan's is obvious, but I greatly prefer Mark Farner's christian album, "Some Kind of Wonderful".
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