Reviewed by Sammy Horner

I love black gospel I do! It's unusual for skipper Cummings to send me any of this stuff (usually opting for torturing me with some squeaky kids' tape) and so I was not unchuffed to get this on my doorstep. First track ("What A Friend We Have In Jesus"), played as the congregation arrives, is impossible to hear because the piano is too loud. "Ah, well" me-thinks, "it'll get going with 'Victory Today Is Mine'!", but alas, once again the music is too loud and the vocals difficult to catch. Honestly, they could easily be singing "Vic Reeves is sipping wine"! So the CD skimmed its laser over, what can only be called, a well meaning but inaudible album. On the plus side, the energy is there, as are the hand claps and obvious enthusiasm, but the inability to hear the words kinda ruins it. Oh, no! I've started to complain about not hearing the words.maybe I'm just getting too old for this here modern music! Chicago's musical pastor, Woods, was a major gospel figure back in the '60s with many albums on VeeJay, so I suspect these are ancient recordings, given a run-out to appeal to white enthusiasts for ethnic world music. And authentic this recorded-live-in-church-service undoubtedly is. But black gospel recording has come a long, long way from simply turning a tape recorder on during a black church celebration and I doubt whether many of today's gospel buyers would be too impressed with this.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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