Sunday morning gospel: The Temple Quartet--What a Beautiful Day (1976)

Superb quartet gospel in the Blackwood Brothers/Statesmen Quartet vein by the Temple Quartet of Wadsworth, Ohio. Though "Akron Baptist Temple" appears on the record label, the company is Queen City Album, Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio, so that's how I've labeled the tracks. The year (contained in the catalog no.) is 1976.

It's hard to pick a favorite track, as all are so very well done, but I'm especially happy to discover that Will the Circle Be Unbroken is the 1907 Ada Haberson-Charles H. Gabriel original, whose lyrics I consider vastly superior to the version associated with A.P. Carter. And, no, Yesterday is not the McCartney hit song.

Click here to hear: Temple Quartet--What a Beautiful Day

Incidentally, I recently switched to Google Chrome for my browser, and the hyperlink-insertion issues are no more. I've always wanted to type that.

PLAYLIST

I'M HIS, HE'S MINE
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY
WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN (Habershon-Gabriel)
TOURING THAT CITY
THE LIGHTHOUSE
BETHESDA
WHEN I STEP OFF ON THAT BEAUTIFUL SHORE
YESTERDAY
GLAD REUNION DAY
ONE DAY I WILL
I'M LIVING ON HIGHER GROUND

Temple Quartet--What a Beautiful Day (Queen City 6032N7; 1976)

Lee

Cool Royale label "covers"

A not-bad cover version of Singing the Blues coupled with a very decent cover of I Walk the Line, both ripped by me from a lightly hammered 78. Neither version is credited.

I was able to get acceptable sound from this very cheap budget disc. The flip side didn't survive the ravages of storage quite as well as this one. Luckily, this is the side I wanted.

Click here to hear: Two Royale "covers"

SINGING THE BLUES--No artist credited

I WALK THE LINE--No artist credited(Royale 7812; 78 rpm EP)

Lee

Vernon Geyer is back! Pop organ sounds from 1937-1938!

Apparently, the pop organ styles of Jesse Crawford, Lew White, and Vernon Geyer magically morphed into "space age pop" when they appeared in the persons of Ethel Smith, Lenny Dee, and Eddie Layton. Reason being, the latter folks are known from long-playing records, and pop music history, being Boomer-centric, is necessarily LP-centric. In case you were wondering why the history of pop music is nearly always told in vinyl terms.

Continued here: Vernon Geyer--Pop Organ Sounds



Lee

Sunday morning gospel: The Singing Ledbetters--The Safety of His Arms

Here, for their second Sunday in a row, are the Singing Ledbetters, with The Safety of His Arms. A great 1960s-something country gospel LP, and my previous guess was correct as to the recording site--Columbia Studios, Nashville (this time it's listed on the jacket). We certainly have some famous names backing up the singers: Jerry Reed, guitar--Boyce Hawkins, organ--Lloyd Green, steel guitar--Ernie Newton, bass--Joe Moschea, II, piano--D.J. Fontana, drums. You'll recall that, last LP (Stroll Over Heaven), D.J. was credited (miscredited?) on bass.

The last track, Here Was a Man, is also known as One Solitary Life (in 2009, I featured a Christmas version by Robert Goulet). The text originally appeared--in a different form--in a 1926 sermon by one Dr. James Allen Francis at the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles. It's been through various revisions, and sometimes (at least on line) the text that appears on modern recordings is identified as Francis' 1926 text, but it isn't. Here's an amazing page that traces the path of Francis' text/poem in great detail: One Solitary Life .

Great stuff. You want to hear it.

Click here to hear: The Safety of His Arms--The Singing Ledbetters

TRACKLIST

THE SAFETY OF HIS ARMS
HE SAVED MY SOUL
THE MASTER LOCKSMITH
I'D LIKE TO SETTLE DOWN
COOL, CHILLY WATER
WILL IT DO
A RICH MAN AM I
I CALL HIM
WHEN I GOT SAVED
NEVER FAILETH
HOW FAR IS HEAVEN
HERE WAS A MAN

The Singing Ledbetters: The Safety of His Arms (Family Circle 1002; Recorded at Columbia Studios, Nashville; Mfd. by Columbia Rec. Productions)


Lee