Favorite gospel tracks, Part 7--An Evening Prayer

You'll have to admit that the above LP cover stands out in any genre, including gospel, which has more than its share of unusual jacket images.  I posted this at Facebook, where it received the comment, "Shades of 'Bride of Frankenstein.'"  A reference to the doll-sized people on the organ, of course.

Most of these are cassette "rescues," and I thought I'd looked everything up in time for this post, LP- and year-wise (when possible), but it looks like I didn't.  Oh, well.  That'll happen.  Since there are four Shouting on the Hills versions in today's list, I could have named this post "Still Shouting," but I settled instead, title-wise, for the lovely Charles H. Gabriel number (words by C. Maude Battersby) An Evening Prayer, a gospel standard from around 1911.  The next time someone challenges you to name a hymn recorded by both Homer Rodeheaver and Elvis Presley, just name this one.  And there's some fine Jimmy Swaggart piano on two tracks, including Glory Land March, which may have been composed by Jimmie Masters.  That's the one credit I'm able to find--a copyright entry--but was he the actual composer?  Same question when it comes to the not-Led-Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven, which is associated with the Stanley Brothers and credited on one page to Bill J. Grant and Ralph Stanley.  But only on a single webpage, so I can't be sure. 

I have no idea what's up with Over in Gloryland, which is not Just over in the Gloryland, if that's any help.  We know what it isn't, at least.  And I can now say with definite definiteness that Eugene Monroe (E.M.) Bartlett composed There'll Be Shouting.  I finally found it in one of my songbooks, and I posted a scan here, but don't tell anyone. Copyrighted 1925, which means that the number was only a year old when Smith's Sacred Singers recorded it! 

Please Stop Running Away from God is a lovely song that I'd love to find a sheet music copy of, though in basic SATB form, not a choir version, so I can play it on the organ.  At any rate, I'm surprised it's not better known.  Maybe it just came out at the wrong time.  Maybe it simply failed to last into the praise song era.

Enjoy!




DOWNLOAD: Favorite gospel tracks, Part 7





Brighten the Corner Where You Are (Odgon-Gabriel)--Ralph Carmichael
An Evening Prayer (Battersby-Gabriel)--The Browns, 1962
Same--Blue Ridge Quartet, 1972
Same--Homer Rodeheaver, 1920 (Victor 17714)
That Heavenly Home (Frank White)--The Prophets Quartet
Over in Gloryland--Same
Shouting on the Hills of Glory (Bartlett)--The Baker Family
There'll Be Shouting (Bartlett)--The Happy Goodman Family (1968)
Jesus Is Coming Soon (R.E. Winsett)--Gethsemane Quartet
Glory Land March (Johnnie Masters?)--Jimmy Swaggart, piano, 1972
Stairway to Heaven--Bluegrass Gospel Travelers
Palms of Victory (Matthias)--Singing Revivers
Crying Holy Unto the Lord--The Country Gospel-Aires
There Ain't No Grave (Claude Ely)--The Country Gospel-Aires
Since Jesus Came Into My Heart (McDaniel-Gabriel)--Jimmy Swaggart, piano, 1972
There'll Be Shouting on the Hills of Glory (Barlett)--The Bissell Brothers
When They Call My Name (Lister)--Gospel Mariners
Shouting on the Hills (Bartlett)--Gospel Mariners
The Meeting in the Air (Martin)--The Speer Family, 1966
Where the Gates Swing Outward Never (Chas. H. Gabriel)--Mrs. William Asher-Homer Rodeheaver, 1920
Please Stop Running Away from God (Oren Paris)--Revivaltime Choir, 1969
Assurance March (Wendell P. Loveless)--Paul Mickelson at the Grand Robert-Morton Pipe Organ, 1961

Lee

Faux Fab Four, Part 3--Lucy in the Sky, Uncle Albert

Well, I guess you can still tell it's them.  Anyway...

What can I say?  Some mind-blowing (and, at times, mind-blowingly bad) Beatles fakes, with some of the tracks belonging in the semi-fake or almost-fake category.  Peter Knight, for instance, was a highly legit musician and had every right to release an instrumental LP of Sgt. Pepper's, but, as well done as it may be, it's pure exploitation--a cash-in effort, however competent.  And how can I not post Pops-style versions of Lucy in the Sky and A Day in the Life?  They cry out to be included.  And Terry Baxter's record club (Columbia) material are fake versions in the get-the-Beatles-at-a-reduced-price tradition, and their expert presentation makes them all the more hilarious.  As for the Electric Scoundrals/Scoundrels (they're spelled both ways on the Premier label release), they're a cover name (like you wouldn't have guessed) for a cobbled-together collection of fakes spanning the years 1960 to 1969.  And their version of Hey Jude (recorded in something approximating stereo), is easily the worst I've ever heard, but I love it, anyway!  The Candy-Rock Generation is another Columbia Record Club--er, Columbia Musical Treasures--outfit providing the hits to people who want them fake and inexpensive.  Same ol' story.  And the Free Spirits, Sound Effects, and Northern Lights were all made-up groups working for QMO Records, the company behind many later fakes.  I wonder how many times I've typed "fake" and "fakes" in this paragraph?

I have a warm spot in my heart for the gorgeous (and hopelessly pretentious!) Longines Symphonette versions of the Fab Four--we get two: Lady Madonna and Hello, Goodbye--and pity the person who arrives in the middle of either arrangement and tries to guess the tunes.  And we get some solo and post-Beatles material--#9 Dream, Another Day, Instant Karma, and an especially dreadful Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.  I don't know how anyone could possibly take the fun out of the finale to that last number, but The Sound Effects found a way.  You get what you don't pay for, I reckon.

Enjoy!!







DOWNLOAD: Faux Fab Four 3






Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds--Peter Knight Orch., 1967
Yellow Submarine--Jalopy Five, 1966
Revolution--The Candy-Rock Generation, 1969
Birthday--Same
Penny Lane--Same
Day Tripper--No credit (Arc AS 796)
A Day in the Life--Peter Knight Orch., 1967
Lady Madonna--The Longines Symphonette, 1968
Carry That Weight--The Terry Baxter Orch. and Chorus, 1972
Honey Pie--Richard Alden, His Orch. and Chorus, 1970
Hey Jude--The Electric Scoundrals (Premier 1005)
My Sweet Lord (Harrison)--Northern Lights, 1971
#9 Dream--The Free Spirits, 1975
Long and Winding Road--The Terry Baxter Orch. and Chorus, 1972
Lovely Rita--Peter Knight Orch., 1967
Paperback Writer--The Terry Baxter Orch. and Chorus, 1972
Come Together--Hey Jude Medley--The Mike Curb Congregation, 1970
Magical Mystery Tour--The Terry Baxter Orch. and Chorus, 1972
Instant Karma (John Lennon)--No credit (Alshire S-5197; 1970)
Yellow Submarine--No credit (36 Today! Columbia Record Club; 1967)
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (Paul and Linda McCartney)--The Sound Effects, 1971
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds--The Free Spirits, 1975
Hello, Goodbye--The Longines Symphonette, 1968
Another Day (Paul and Linda McCartney)--Northern Lights, 1971



Lee

Favorite gospel tracks, Part 6--Shouting on the Hills

Today's offerings are highly down home, so I thought I'd use the highly down home jacket photo (above) of the Taylor Mountain Boys to underscore the, um, down home-ness.  I suppose that "down home" means back to what's true and pure--going back to things that are basic and simple--returning from those things and ways of life that distract us from what's real and good and holy.  Back from the city, with its pollution and litter and artificial ways and red light cameras.  Going home, which can mean going back to the old country church, or going home in the final-journey sense.  Going to the mansion over the hill.  Walking the streets of gold. Chatting with the saints on a first name basis.  I don't know how I got caught in this cycle of gospel memes, but I need to free myself (so to speak) and start talking about the tracks....

There.  I'm back.  It's weird, getting stuck in the gospel meme zone--nice, though.  A week's worth of ripping freshly-thifted and long-ago digitized gospel tracks, and... you just sort of end up in that zone.  Looks like I have enough tracks left on my PC for two more installments after today, and maybe a new Higher Ground version will pop up in the meanwhile.  Today, we start out with three HG's, the lively Coffey Family take, the down-home-as-it-gets Jordan Family version, Joe Emerson's big label (RCA) treatment, and arranger Frank Garlock's terrific choral arrangement for the Southside Baptist Church Choir.  Such is my devotion to getting the details right (or, keeping the typos down), I re-uploaded this zip file after I noticed I'd misspelled Frank's last name on that track as "Garlop."  However, I still forgot to take the Gospel-Lites' name out of the title field of their terrific Take Your Shoe Off Moses, proving that I'm perfect.  I mean, that I'm not perfect.  By the way, the lack of a comma in that title could have someone thinking it's about taking our shoes off of Moses, as opposed to an invitation to Moses to remove his.  ("Sorry, Moses--I gave you the wrong shoes.  Those are mine."  Moses: "They did seem a little cramped....")

The tracks today are so bluegrassy and country-y (coutry-y??) that I removed some slower, more thoughtful tracks I'd wanted to include--they were like jamming on the brakes, tempo- and mood-wise.  So I'll feature them next time.  They're great tracks, but they're the stylistic antitheses of these, and I didn't want to break the nonstop rhythm established by these.  The Rock Where Moses Stood, aka Crying Holy Unto the Lord, is credited everywhere to A.P. Carter, but he had an unfortunate habit (or someone did) of sticking his name on things he didn't write, including numbers that were still in copyright at the time (like Ada J. Blenkhorn and J. Howard Entwistle's Keep on the Sunny Side of Life).  So I see "A.P. Carter," and I say, "Yeah, right."  This could well have been an author-unknown African-American number--many of those are bluegrass gospel standards, like Hear Jerusalem Moan.  Whoever gave it to us did us a major favor--it's magnificent.  Come and Dine is another great one, with known authorship this time, and since I'm used to hearing the number in a Billy Graham Choir-sort of rendering, it's interesting to hear it done up country by the Happy Goodman Family and bluegrass by The Taylor Mountain Boys.  I'm trying to come up with some at-the-table word play here, but I'm not succeeding.  Ain't No Grave, which Wikipedia says is usually credited to Claude Ely, is of course a Rapture song, and with a spooky feel--those held, mournful notes might have something to do with it, and you'd almost not know the words are describing a happy event.  I had a stray Jesus Is Coming Soon left over, as recorded by the Heavenbound Singers, so here it is, and it's a more than worthy take.  I had a stray Echoes from the Burning Bush, too, and it's fine, as well.  Shouting on the Hills, aka Shouting on the Hills of Glory is credited to Rowe-Vaughn by one cyber-source, and to Carter Stanley (of the Stanley Brotheres) by a number of others, but Hymnary,org tells us the author is E.M. Bartlett and that the proper title is What a Happy Time Is Coming.  I trust them on this matter, so Bartlett it is.  All three versions in our playlist are as down home as down home comes, and they're all excellent, but I go with the earliest--the superb 1926 Smith's Sacred Singer's recording, which I freshly ripped today from my not-mint Columbia 78.

The Traveler's Quartet--credited on its jacket as the Travler's Quartet--was going to get three spots today, but they got bumped down to one so I could make -athons out of He Bore It All and Hold to God's Unchanging Hand.  Lots of behind-the-blog penciling in and penciling out happens here as I make these--the Media Room was busy this week.  It took a little Googling to discover the person who wrote Keys to the Kingdom, but it was Jenny Lou Carson (I confirmed this by listening to her version on YouTube), and I wish people on line would stop being stupid and quit giving songwriting credit to whoever happens to have recorded the version they know.  That way, I wouldn't have to wade through fifteen false credits each time I check on numbers I don't know.  The fidelity on the Travler's/Traveler's LP is some of the most limited I've yet encountered on a privately-made gospel effort, so it took two levels of upper-freq manipulation to achieve good, solid mediocre sound quality.  Worth it when the performers are this interesting.  But I have to wonder if the engineer cut the treble or if it there simply wasn't any to begin with on the master tape.

All transfers are mine, except for the 1928 Stamps Quartet track (He Bore It All), which I rescued from RCA Camden fake stereo, and yes, that's "Andra Czarnikow" getting the composer credit for God Walks the Dark Hills (one of the all-time best gospel song titles), and it's the genuine credit, as far as I know.  Anyone with any knowledge of Andra, please chime in.

Banjos, mandolins, fiddles, bluegrass end-of-lines fermatas, plus a few sides some distance from the mountains but which soar, nonetheless, or whatever I just typed.  This is me, typing under the influence of high ragweed pollen.  To the music!

UPDATE: I mistook Over in the Gloryland for Emmett S. Dean's Just Over in the Glory-Land, penned in 1906 and often credited to the co-publisher.  This is a very similar, but different, number.  And Shouting on the Hills is indeed by E.M. Bartlett, composed in 1925 under the title There'll Be Shouting.  I just discovered it one of my songbooks.







DOWNLOAD: Favorite gospel tracks, part 6







Higher Ground (Oatman, Jr.-Gabriel)--Coffey Family
Same--The Jordan Family
Same--Joe Emerson, 1960
Same--The Southside Baptist Church Choir (Arr: Frank Garlock)
The Rock Where Moses Stood--The Earls and Whitehead Gospel Singers, 1967
Come and Dine (Widmeyer)--The Taylor Mountain Boys, 1968
Same--The Happy Goodman Family, 1969
Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down (Claude Ely)--G.M. Farley and the Foggy River Boy, 1963
Ain't No Grave (C. Ely)--The Cooke Duet, 1969
Jesus Is Coming Soon (R.E. Winsett)--The Heavenbound Singers
Echoes from the Burning Bush (Summar-Foust)--The Gloryland Quartet
Shouting on the Hills (E.M. Bartlett)--Jack Bishop
Shouting on the Hills of Glory (E.M. Bartlett)--The Earls and Whitehead Gospel Singers, 1967
Shouting on the Hills (E.M. Bartlett)--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1926
God Walks the Dark Hills (Andra Czarnikow)--The Leach Family
Hand Writing--Traveler's Quartet, 1967
Key's (sic) to the Kingdom (Jenny Lou Carson)--Traveler's Quartet, 1967
Take Your Shoes Off Moses (Jarris)--The Gospel-Lites
Meet Me Up in Heaven (Lee Roy Abernathy)--The Toney Brothers Quartet
Over in the Gloryland (James W. Acuff)--The Singing Millers, 1973 (Songwriters unknown)
Hold to God's Unchanging Hand (Eiland-Wilson)--The LeFevres, 1963?
Same--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1928
He Bore It All (Baxter, Jr.-Stamps)--The Stamps Quartet, 1928
Same--The Southern-Aires Gospel Singers
Same--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1927


Lee

Faux Fab Four--34 tracks! Post revived from last year....

Here's a repost from October of last year, with a revised text.  This was going to be the first entry in a series called "Fake Hits from the Sixties," but it doesn't look like a second part ever happened.  From the same folder containing these two zips is a zip of '60s sound-alikes--it may be the Part 2 that never happened.  I'll have to look them over and figure that out.  Meanwhile, making their second appearance, and long unavailable at Zippyfile, are today's 34 fake Beatles tracks, all ripped from budget labels (of course).  Labels like Song Hits and Hit Parader--EPs named, naturally, after Charlton Publications' Hit Parader and Song Hits magazines.  You may recall the ads for these:

Also, the less-than-major labels Hit Records, the U.K. Top 6 EPs and LPs, Arc Records, and the Columbia Record Club.  The performances range from outstanding (the unnamed group on the Top Six Beatlemania LP--can't recall who they were) to dreadful (the Hit Records/Modern Sound covers, and some of the Song Hits/Hit Parader efforts).

We Love You Beatles was a novelty hit by the Carefrees, Bad to Me was a Lennon-McCartney hit for Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and World Without Love was a Lennon-McCartney hit for Peter and Gordon, all 1964.  The Hit Parader 39 Michelle is a copy of the 1966 David and Jonathan version.  Get your 34 faux Fab Four goodies here!




DOWNLOAD: Faux Fab Four 1 and Faux Fab Four 2

Faux Fab Four 1

I Feel Fine--Song Hits 32
I Want to Hold Your Hand--Hit Parader 27
She Loves You--Song Hits 28
We Love You Beatles--Song Hits 28
Please Please Me--Song Hits 28
She Loves You Top 6 T6505
Bad To Me--Top 6 T6505
Michelle--Hit Parader 39
I Saw Her Standing There--The Beats (Design 170)
A Hard Day's Night--Columbia Record Club D 63
I'll Cry Instead--Columbia Record Club D 63
I Want to Hold Your Hand--Columbia Record Club D 63
Can't Buy Me Love--Columbia Record Club D 63
Help!--Russ Loader and the Corsairs--Col. Record Club E127
I Wanna Be Your Man--Hits of To-day, Mini 603
Penny Lane--Jalopy Five, Hit 287
World Without Love--Hits of Today, Mini 603

Faux Fab Four 2

Day Tripper--Modern Sound 1020
My Bonnie--Modern Sound 1020
Can't Buy Me Love--Modern Sound 544
Lady Madonna--Hit Records 466
Twist and Shout--The Bugs, Hit 111
She Loves You--The Bugs, Hit 106
A Hard Day's Night--Enoch Light and His Orch., Command 4050 (45 rpm)
Please Please Me--The Boll Weevils--Hit 107
I Want to Hold Your Hand--The Doodles, Hit 104
And I Love Her--The Jalopy Five, Hit 138
I Feel Fine--Top Six 11
Matchbox--The Jalopy Five, Hit 147
Help!--The Jalopy Five, Hit 220
Hello, Goodbye--ARC AS 796
I Wanna Be Your Man--Beatlemania, Top Six TSL 1 (1964)
Money--Beatlemania, Top Six TSL 1 (1964)
Roll Over Beethoven--Beatlemania, Top Six TSL 1 (1964)

Lee

Favorite gospel tracks, Part 5--Echoes from the Burning Bush

A number of bluegrass gospel standards today, plus one of the earliest best-selling gospel records, the Stamps Quartet's 1927 Give the World a Smile, which Wikipedia describes as "probably the first Southern gospel song to become a 'gold record.'"  Dwight M. Brock's ragtime-style piano on this track may come as a surprise to anyone who associates syncopated gospel piano with a later era--but it was an established thing even this early.  I know, because (to my astonishment at the time) I heard a similar piano backing for a vocal solo on a c.-1903 cylinder (a CD dub, to be precise).  Even the Stamps' note/chord trade-offs, with the staccato harmonies punctuating the melody line, is a tradition dating back at least as far as the 1880s, as proved by gospel songbooks of the late 19th century.  Sacred quartet singing, like Barbershop, is at least as old as sound recordings, but, while much Barbershop was recorded, gospel quartets didn't find their market until about the mid-1920s.  It's quite a shame, considering what could have been, but wasn't, recorded.  Same is true of the earliest country music--I'd give anything to hear a turn of the century outfit, though there were some barn dance imitations that found their way into early-1900s pop music.

The strange, scat-style singing at the end of the Stamps Quartet disc never caught on, I don't think, and it's kind of a jolt--but a quite cool one.  And we get to hear the Blackwood Brothers' outstanding 1959 recreation of this number, which the Blackwoods do at a much faster tempo.  Show-offs.

The country/bluegrass gospel standards in our playlist bring us a little closer to the present: four versions of Echoes from the Burning Bush (written in 1943), four versions of Jesus Is Coming Soon (written in 1942), and two rounds of I'll Have a New Life (written in 1940).  Tramp on the Street (two versions today) is another mandolin and fiddle standard, though it's from the period discussed above--the late 19th century, when it was known as Only a Tramp.  It's the ultimate social-gospel gospel number, and a genuinely brilliant work, its lyrical simplicity just one aspect of that brilliance.

I've always been fascinated by the old-fashioned sound of so many of the gospel numbers written during and just after the Depression.   They have the sound of music that has passed through many generations of rural folks miles removed from the nearest city of any size, yet they're actually professionally written numbers popularized on radio and records by major-label country and bluegrass acts, starting with groups like, of course, the Carter Family.  Also fascinating, and funny, is the number of "songs from the hills" that were actually written in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Northern states like Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Moving a little closer to the present, we have two numbers by the brilliant John W. Peterson--the marvelous gospel waltz numbers Jesus Is Coming Again (not to be confused with Soon), and Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul.  (Actually, these numbers are in 6/4 and 6/8, respectively, but I call them waltzes.)  Peterson was the Charles H. Gabriel of the latter 20th century--a musician with far greater formal training than Gabriel but the same genius for simple, unforgettable melodies.

And we get a second helping of Phillip H. Lord's 1930 classic You Go to Your Church, and I'll Go to Mine, performed this time by one-time radio and TV singer Joe Emerson, who injects great feeling into the already-moving words.  Heaven's Avenue was written by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Stamps.  Frank H. Stamps led this group, a new version of what had once been two separate Stamps quartets--one led by Frank, and the other by Virgil.  Now you know.

The 1928 Vaughan Quartet restoration (His Charming Love) is my own, whereas the two late-'20s Stamps sides are from an RCA Camden LP, whose fake stereo I managed to turn into decent mono.  The sound drop-outs on Carl Story's Tramp on the Street were on the LP.  Maybe the label was working from a damaged master tape.

Enjoy!





DOWNLOAD: Favorite gospel tracks, Part 5





Echoes from the Burning Bush (Summar-Foust)--The Chuck Wagon Gang, 1949
Same--Carl Story and His Rambling Mountaineers, 1955
Same--Harmony Four (from LP Footsteps of Eternity)
Same--The Southern-Aires Gospel Singers (from LP Heaven Is My Home)
Saved (Smith-Hickman)--George Zinn, Lyric Tenor (from LP Sermons in Song)
Jesus Is Coming Soon (R.E. Winsett)--Oak Ridge Boys, 1971?
Same--The Southern-Aires Gospel Singers (from LP Heaven Is My Home)
Same--The Toney Brothers Quartet (from LP Gospel Singing Time with...)
Same--The Evangelaires (from LP I Should Have Been Crucified)
Tramp on the Street--Carl Story, 1961
Tramp on the Street--The Miller Brothers, 1972
Pearly White City (Arthur Forrest Ingler)--Radio Bible Class Quartet (from LP Singspiration Sampler)
He Keeps Me Singing (Luther B. Bridgers)--Philip Kerr Harmony Chorus (Same)
Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul (John W. Peterson)--The Billy Graham London Crusade Choir, 1967
Heaven Came Down (Peterson)--The Wilds, Dir. by Frank Garlock (from LP Songs of the Wilds)
And Can It Be That I Should Gain (Charles Wesley-Thomas Campbell)--The Radio Bible Class, 1971
You Go to Your Church, and I'll Go To Mine (Phillips H. Lord)--Joe Emerson, 1960
Give the World a Smile (Deaton-Yandell)--The Stamps Quartet, 1927
Give the World a Smile (Deaton-Yandell)--Blackwood Brothers, 1959
His Charming Love (O.A. Parris)--Vaughan Quartet, 1928
Jesus Is Coming Again (John W. Peterson)--The Billy Graham Crusade Choir, 1962
Jesus Is Coming Again (Peterson)--The Radio Bible Class, 1971
Heaven's Avenue (Mr. and Mrs. Frank Stamps)--The Stamps Quartet, 1955
I'll Have a New Life (Luther G. Presley)--The Southern-Aires Gospel Singers (from LP Heaven Is My Home)
I'll Have a New Life (Presley)--Prairie Grove Gospel Messengers (from LP Meeting in the Air)


Lee