Quick bits of Louisiana Gospel

So I've been sorta hinting at how I want to break into Gospel a bit. I haven't really ever considered myself Christian except by birth as it clashed with my preteen love of dinosaurs, but I find it hard to take issue with the passionate hollerin' that comes out of (black) gospel music. 

So for a class I decided to a do a presentation on it for my final project. I'm not exactly an expert now, but I found some pretty stomp-worthy stuff. And I'm about to give you a real quick tour. Most of this stuff is actually pretty basic and blogged about in plenty of places, but I'm willing to guess that a lot of y'all are just as dumb as I was about this stuff. I'm not attempting a full-on history lesson here, just sharing some stuff that y'all might like.

Booker records = hot: It was mostly a one-man operation, started out as rhythm and blues but went gospel after just a few. I've got a pretty good 45 of normal semi-musical sermoning off there but the real hot thing is Rev. Charlie Jackson. Think male Sister Rosetta Tharpe. I know, that's no more appealing than female SRT, but more Tharpe in any form is welcome in my book.

God's Got It
Wrapped Up And Tangled Up In Jesus

Apparently learned guitar from a cousin growing up in Alabama. His mom told him he can't play blues during the week and church music on the weekends, and in a move so un-rock&roll it's rock & roll, he listened to his mother, played only religious music and became a minister. Later he went to Louisiana and headed up a church in Amite LA.

So while he was hangin' out over there he met Elder Utah Smith. Utah's only barely Louisiana related, as he ran around touring all over the country and eventually ran his whole operation out of New Jersey. But who cares, because again Think Male Sister Rosetta Tharpe

This song is sort of his theme song because he would perform with two big ol' wings on his back. And if you couldn't tell, he liked to play LOUD. So when he would come around to middle-a-nowhere towns with no power, he would plug his amp into a car battery and perform that way.

So Mahalia Jackson is probably one of the first names you'll hear of in gospel, so I'm not going to bother finding her funkiest track. But I will prove to you that she's funky, despite how clean people try to keep her image. According to a book I was reading, she started up a fried chicken chain in competition to KFC (pure New Orleans) and was quoted saying "The Colonal says his chicken is finger lickin' good... well I think mine is tongue-lickin' good". Personally, this new light on the New Orleans gospel queen got her records back on my platter lickety-split.

And in case you've never heard of her, there's another New Orleans queen of soul.

Really, gospel is a strange genre to follow, as a lot of good albums were very locally circulated, often just among church members, and there's no real cohesive history (a good thing I think, since most rock&roll histories are incomplete and biased (though it would impossible to tell it right)). But what this means is that blind purchases really aren't such a bad thing. One such blind purchase that paid off is this weirdo.

So while this album is purchaseable purely by diner rules (i.e. if it looks that ugly, the food/album must be great), it's also worth noting the names Milton Battiste, Dejean's Olympia Brass Band, and Frank Minyard MD. (coroner!). Unfortunately, in the few weeks that I've had this album I've been irresponsible and there's a big old scratch on Frank Minyard's part and a few others, so I'll hold off on the whole album, but the best two songs are doin' fine.
Jesus What A Wonderful Child
(I Found Out It Was) the Holy Ghost
This is sitting in a strange middle ground between foot-stompin' big choral gospel, second-line music, and occasionally funk. It's fun.

I could throw a few more in there but this is already one of my longer posts and at the rate I've been making new posts I need to save material. And don't worry, I'll give you some straight rock & roll before I drop another gospel on ya. And if you want more right now, here's a youtube playlist I hastily made a few weeks ago.

Further recommendations are always ok, and hopefully I'll clean this up post-July 4th.

Bo Diddley 2 years gone from this earth today

Upon realizing that it was June 2nd, 2 years from Bo Diddley's passing, I scribbled this picture and hopped in my car, making my way towards McComb Mississippi and in two hours (blasting nothing but Bo) I showed up at this post; nobody was there and as far as I know the placement of this marker is arbitrary outside the fact that it's in McComb. But I wanted to pay my respects SOMEWHERE.

And when it was all done I remembered that I had this blog thing (I know, you thought I'd forgotten, right?). I don't think Bo is necessarily the best in rock & roll: but he's one of them and he's my favorite. Why?

• First and foremost, he taught me to do what you love and do it like you love it. He never said as much as far as I can tell, but it's what I draw from his songs and the way he delivers them. Have Guitar Will Travel I think is the best case in point, with his guitar screaming with the same amount of passion that he does throughout. He's always sincere, partially because he's not writing about anything too complex that he can't believe it or stand by it. Simple messages the he (and I, I guess) can get behind.
• Perhaps as a result of bulletpoint 1: he's completely original. Yeah yeah, "the originator" and inventor of the Bo Diddley Beat. Forget that, you can identify him with a half second of his guitar sound. Nobody has sounded like Bo Diddley; everybody that tried has failed and nobody can rip him off because it's too obvious (aside from use of the Bo Diddley beat)
• He appeals to the hacker side of me. I like to screw around with electronics and computers, and here's a musician that builds his own guitars, scooters, and cars.
• He didn't drink or do drugs. I never have and I'd rather not write that dissertation right here, but it's cool to know that somebody that stood apart so much didn't come up with all through substance assistance.
• His music sounds so Southern. Even though he grew up mostly in Chicago. Go figure.

There are a lot of people I could say these things about. Dick Dale was sober, original, passionate, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Ike Turner I could attribute some of these to but the big one

• Never without his sense of humor. Despite the absurd bragging in his songs, his name is still Bo Diddley, which essentially means nobody. As much as he's singing from the heart, everything he's written is so lighthearted, but rarely a joke (excluding his riffs with Jerome). Oh yeah Frank Zappa incorporates humor... but he strikes me as a free jazz Weird Al. You can hear the smile on all of these and some of the songs are so deliberately stupid, but at the same time I had to agree when my friend called it "serious Rock & Roll". I really can't think of anybody else who managed to not separate their music from their humor in the same way and on such a consistent basis.

These are opinions and poorly evoked at that, but I wanted to write a tribute because in my book nobody will ever approach his little corner of music. He wasn't perfect (just a man amongst men you might say) and he made plenty of mistakes, but in a strange way he's been a spiritual model to me even though I have no real desire to touch an instrument.

So if you've stuck with me this far maybe you can join me in what I do every time I see this album cover. Raise your hand to the monitor, wave, and say "Hey Bo Diddley"

Rev. JT Bell & The Moody Family - I've Got It In My Walk \ I See The Blood

I need help y'all. As I keep returning to my Sister Rosetta Tharpe album I start to feel like I want more. While I'm still investigating in my favorite manner: raiding thrift stores and buying interesting 45s, nowadays we've got blogs like this one to open us up to this sort of thing.

However, I've yet to find a good blog full of old foot-stomping Gospel. I'm afraid to delve into the whole genre, since I know a lot of it these days has a cheesy new-age production that I can't stand. I'm not much of a christian... I follow Rock &Roll, but given the amount of surf on here you could guess that lyrics don't matter much. This stuff has OOMPH though, and I'd appreciate it if somebody could point me and the rest of RRHHWW readers to a good resource for more of this sort of stuff.

Anyway, my small amount of headway into this has shown me one certain thing:  this HSE label is hot. Thankfully, the Stepfather of Soul blog has already done the legwork of dredging up the information on the label, and he's got some pretty choice comments helping him out. 

So what do I know about this particular 45? Zip! I know that I've Got It In My Walk is the better of the two, but not by a whole lot, and "I see the blood" makes up for it with its decidedly metal name.

I've Got It In My Walk

I See The Blood

Johnny Zorro

I found out about this artist from one of the Frolic Diner compilations and headed to ebay to pick up a random 45. That's about all I can tell you here other than that it's surf, fun, wierd, and the B-Side is good but not as much as Bongo Guitar. Wish I knew more about it, since Bongo Guitar is ferocious.


download Bongo Guitar


Download Kangaroo Hop

These are hosted on my recently-graduated-school's hosting which may not be legit so get it while it's hot.

I've been a little slow lately because of hurricane nonsense and indecision about what to throw up here next. It's between the Lifeguards, Joe Houston or Little Richard + Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Little Richard & Sister Rosetta Tharpe

I just got this album pretty recently in the midst of a week where I would watch the following video at least once per day

Unfortunately you won't hear anything like that monster solo she pulls off about halfway through, but this album managed to knock me off my feet anyway. About 75% Gospel music and 75% Rock & Roll (yes, those are my figures), high powered throughout. While a little bit of internet research and the previous owner's own notes seem to suggest that this is less of an actual collaboration than it is both artists throwing Gospel songs onto the same album, they both sound good together. While I'll admit to not hearing much of Little Richard's works outside all his biggest hits (which I love), his tracks are the more surprising ones; his lunatic screaming replaced by a surprisingly strong, resounding church-singing voice. Not a single WOOOO! to be heard.

Despite my buying the cover in two pieces, this is a pretty clean rip with most imperfections only noticeable in the silence between tracks. Hope y'all enjoy this as much as I did