Sunday morning gospel, Part 1--Paul Mickelson Plays for Youth (Word W-3064; 1961)

One of the coolest covers of all time, and the Sharpie writing above the first two miniature teems (now invisible) was easy to clone out.  There was a price (1.00) and "B1."  Maybe the identity of a seller in a flea market mall.  Doc requested a post of this LP, and I'm glad he did, because it's a joy.  It's been played a lot, but the amazing VinylStudio click filter made it sound like new--with a little MAGIX splicing for the leftover noise.  Beautiful monaural fidelity, and the usual first-rate Word musicianship.  Besides an expert organist and pianist, Paul Mickelson was an executive at Word, and he formed the Supreme label, which got rave reviews at Billboard.  I'm getting all of this right now from Wikipedia....

Paul double-tracks piano in some spots, which I was relieved to find out from the notes, because I had no idea where the piano was coming from.  And the jacket credits are all in the family--Engineering and editing by William H. Mickelson, and the front cover photo by Jean Mickelson.  No luck on determining the exact relationships--Google-searching "Jean Mickelson" plus "Word Records" only yields this LP plus an unrelated entry.  Dunno who William was.  I'm a lot of help this morning, aren't I?

I love Mickelson's arrangements and clean, advanced technique.  He keeps things rolling but reverent, and I couldn't resist typing that phrase once it popped into my head.  Word Records could have used me back then.  "Rolling but reverent--that's great"--Word.  That, or "Get out of here."  The organ effects--percussion, celeste, and more--are superbly incorporated, with nothing corny or cliched, and the playlist is perfect.  According to the notes, "These songs are heart melodies of the young Christians of the twentieth century."  Come 1969 or so, it was "Jesus music."  Fast forward to 2020, and it's praise music (short phrases repeated 500 times, followed by a fade).  I'm sure the standard stereotype of religious music is a traditional, slowly changing core playlist, but that's not even true of mainline hymnals, which regularly add and discard numbers.  Still-popular old-time gospel numbers like When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder and He Lives represent a tiny, tiny fraction of all the numbers that have filled songbooks and tunebooks since the Ira Sankey period of the late 1800s.  A song's chances of becoming a sacred standard are roughly those of space junk hitting the hood of a car and leaving the profile of Clark Gable.

The final number on this outstanding LP--Stand up for Jesus--is one of the first gospel numbers I ever learned.  This was during my trial-by-fire period as organist for the first church I belonged to, when I didn't know one title from the other.  Luckily, piano lessons made me a good reader and, when necessary, a competent sight-reader.  In that gig, I often came to church on Sunday not having been given the hymn titles--so I did a lot of stuff cold.  But this is about Paul Mickelson--and Christian youth.  At 63, I wish I could get some of that back.  And I hope that, after the photo shoot, the young folks on the jacket were restored to their original size.  ("Oh, no!  The reducing ray won't go into reverse!!")

To the sounds....



DOWNLOAD: Paul Mickelson Plays for Youth (1961)

Lee