SPECIAL PROGAMMING NOTE: SHOUT! host Bob Darden recently partnered with composer and scholar Dr. Stephen Newby for a one-hour radio special commemorating the 10th anniversary of the passing of gospel legend Andraé Crouch. Ten Transformative Songs of Andraé Crouch explores the life, ministry, and musical legacy of one of gospel’s most influential voices. The program builds on themes from their newly released book, Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andraé Crouch. You can link to the program by clicking here.
Author and Baylor University professor Robert Darden tells stories -- and plays recordings -- from the Baylor University Libraries' Black Gospel Music Restoration Project in an on-going weekly series of two-minute segments. SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments explores the distinctly African-American sound of the "Golden Age of Gospel" (1945-1975). The series celebrates this fertile musical period in American history, presenting cultural snapshots that reveal the depth of a people, their community, and the influence they have had on the rest of American music.
SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments has also been selected by the panelists at Feedspot.com as one of the Top 10 Black Gospel Podcasts on the web, and one of the Top 40 Black Christian Podcasts from MillionPodcasts.com.
Way to go, Bob Darden and team!
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The Sweet Brothers of Vero Beach, Florida, deserved wider recognition for their soulful, slow burn gospel songs, including “I’ll Be Welcomed.” -
The Cotton Brothers of Macon, Georgia, excelled at a particularly exciting brand of gospel soul, including the rave-up, “Alright, Alright.”
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The Rev. J.R. Lockley and His Original Gospel Clefs, featuring big-voiced Ann Moncrief, deliver a killer version of the spiritual, “One of These Mornings.”
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New York City’s Echoes of Life turn Thomas Dorsey’s beloved “You’ve Got to Live the Life” into a rough and raspy old school gospel shout.
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In 1959, the Abbysinnia Baptist Church Young People’s Choir recorded a cheerfully up tempo version of the old spiritual “You’ve Got to Move” for the famed Gotham Record label.
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The Faithful Wonders’ funky “Ol’ John (Behold Thy Mother),” first released in 1968, has been re-released multiple times on various gospel and R&B anthologies in recent years.
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The Kansas East Sunshine Band Children’s Choir’s Young & Gifted Recorded Live! LP features a killer vocal by 9-year-old Crystal Morris on the funky “Is There Anything Too Hard for God?”
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From the Zion Sings LP by the venerable Zion Missionary Baptist Church of East Chicago, Indiana, comes this moving and reverent version of the spiritual, “The Old Ship of Zion.”
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For my 500th episode of “Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments” I’m sharing the first gospel 45 I ever bought, “People Get Ready” by the Chambers Brothers.
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The rare 45 “Oh, Mother Tonight” by the otherwise unknown Gospel Twins is a uniquely primitive addition to Baylor’s Black Gospel Archives.
