SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - Blind Willy Harris

In recent years, music lovers have re-discovered producer Juan D. Shipp’s fabulous D-Vine Spirituals label out of Memphis. Fat Possum Records’ re-releases of classic D-Vine 45s have even been featured on NPR and Free Record Day.

Shipp and engineer Clyde Leoppard started D-Vine in 1970 and over the next 15 years released an astonishing array of gospel artists, including the Gospel Wymics, the Pure Heart Travelers, the Exciting Legion Airs and Blind Willie Harris and the Sensational Six.

Harris’s rendition of the beloved gospel song “Jesus Loves Me” is a perfect example of what D-Vine did best – fueled by a Stax Records-styled horn section, it’s slow and gritty and bluesy and absolutely drips with soul.

MUSIC: Blind Willie Harris and the Sensational Six, “Jesus Loves Me,” 45.

PREVIOUS EPISODES OF SHOUT! BLACK GOSPEL MUSIC MOMENTS

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - Rosie Wallace and the First Church of Love, Faith, and Deliverance Choir

Few could match the power of Evangelist Rosie Wallace and the First Church of Love, Faith and Deliverance Choir of Philadelphia!

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - The Harold Smith Majestics

The Harold Smith Majestics could sing anything, from light classic to gospelized Broadway tunes to classic gospel like “The Lord Will Carry You Through.”

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - The Newberry Singers

Led by Edwin Newberry, the always innovative Newberry Singers sound like no other gospel group on their own composition, “Trouble Will Soon Be Over.”

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - Sarah Vaughan

The incomparable Sarah Vaughan recorded a handful of spirituals during her long career, including this gentle version of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - The Patterson Singers

The Patterson Singers’ “I’m Moving Up” features an irresistibly up tempo closing gospel vamp.

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - Swanee Quintet

In there more than 70 years together, the Swanee Quintet released a host of great gospel songs, including this one - “The Lord’s on My Side.”

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - Dorothy Love Coates and the Original Harmonettes

The legendary Dorothy Love Coates was one of the true stars of gospel music and her powerful “99 ½ Won’t Do” was adopted as a freedom song during the civil rights movement.

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - The Rev. Morgan Babb

The Rev. Morgan Babb’s passionate version of “Lord, You’ve Been Good to Me” spontaneously emerges from the altar call during one of his legendary sermons.

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - Singing Corinthians

The otherwise unknown Singing Corinthians deliver an impassioned version of the old spiritual, “The Lord Will Provide.”

SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - The Blend Wright Trio

The Blend Wright Trio were a poppy, upbeat gospel group led by the multi-talented Eleanor Wright, who recorded for Savoy in the 1960s.

“Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments” is produced by KWBU and the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor University Libraries.