The unknown Reverend Leon Hamner and the Holy City Travelers cut loose of the gospel rave-up "I've Got the Love of Jesus".
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Welcome to Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments. I’m Robert Darden.
In 2016, the beloved reissue label Fat Possum Records releases compilation from the Big Legal Mess label, featuring the many and varied – and mostly obscure – artists of the Designer label. The Big Legal Mess CDs quickly became favorites of gospel-files everywhere.
I’d never heard of Designer – nor any of the dozens of artists on that wonderful 4-sided CD set. And that includes the Gospel Songbirds, the Dynamic Hughes Gospel Singers, the Melody Kings of Greenwood, Mississippi, the Twilight Singers, the Sensational Family Singers, the Soul Superiors of Detroit and many, many more.
Fortunately, the Black Gospel Music Restoration project has one of the two 45s released on Designer by the otherwise unknown Rev. Leon Hamner and the Holy City Travelers. It features an upbeat, poppy gospel romp titled “I’ve Got the Love of Jesus” that would have fit perfectly in the wide-open pop charts of 1970 – if any DJ had had the guts to check it out. See if you don’t agree...
MUSIC: “I”ve Got the Love of Jesus,” the Rev. Leon Hamner and the Holy City Travelers, 45
I’m Robert Darden … “Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments” is produced by KWBU, the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project at Baylor University Libraries and is funded by generous support from the Prichard Foundation.
