STYLE: Gospel RATING OUR PRODUCT CODE: 21443-11961 LABEL: Document DOCD5555 FORMAT: CD Album ITEMS: 1 RRP: £9.99
Reviewed by Tony Cummings
More vocal ensembles from both Northern and Southern States recorded between 1927 and 1941. The New Orleans University Glee Club were a trained acapella choir with male and female singers; Reed And Duncans were an unaccompanied duo who featured a high soprano voice and a lower alto one; the Ravizee Singers were a family group from Mobile, Alabama who showed an impressive and complex weave of harmony parts; while the Pilgrim Jubilee Singers were a mixed unaccompanied group with dual leads and a surprisingly rocking sound. The two well known acts here are the Pace Jubilee Singers who recorded many sides for Victor, Vocalion and Gennett but whose four sides here for Paramount are probably their best and show lead singer Hattie Parker to have a soulful style not dissimilar to the great Mahalia Jackson. Also impressive are The Royal Harmony Singers (later to change their name to The Jubilaires who recorded gospel and secular material for King Records). The Singers' four tracks recorded here in 1941 include "The Gospel Train" complete with train sounds and trumpet-like scat singing and a nice down-tempo version of The Golden Gates' "Jezebel".
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