Evelyn Turrentine-Agee – There’s Gonna Be a Meeting

Evelyn Turrentine-Agee

There’s Gonna Be a Meeting (release date: September 28, 2010)

Shanachie 2010

“Give me that old key,” a female voice drawls. 

An open chord is plucked note for note on an electric guitar, in the fashion of the Golden Age quartets.  It’s the cue for that female voice, belonging to Stellar Award-winner Evelyn Turrentine-Agee, to launch into “He’s Using Me,” which she does, rocking a bluesy beat and sounding for all the world like a protégé of Mavis Staples.

Tomorrow, Turrentine-Agee, whose gospel smash “God Did It” has wrecked churches and auditoriums since the 1980s, will release her seventh solo CD, There’s Gonna Be a Meeting.  It contains the alternately hand-clapping and bluesy church rousers, such as “He’s Using Me,” for which the Queen of Quartet is known.

The debut single, “Work It Out,” sets the tone with its classic quartet stomp beat.  It subconsciously riffs off of the Cosmopolitan Warriors’ “He Can Work It Out,” now part of the church lexicon. Turrentine-Agee throws up her hands in distress over the daily indignities that, she acknowledges, require Heavenly intervention.

Turrentine-Agee is joined by former Christianaires singer (and godson) Paul Porter on the bright and soulful “So Good.”  On the uptempo “Fresh Anointing,” she trades lyrics with Patrick Wayne Hollis, drummer for Lee Williams and the Spiritual QCs and brother of the album’s producer, Alton Hollis.  Al, also a member of the Spiritual QCs, contributes songs to the project, including the spritely mid-tempo “New Life,” which is reminiscent of the Gospel Four’s “New Walk.”  Top-shelf producer Sanchez Harley lends his studio skills to “God Will Come.”

In addition to brand new songs, the CD contains gospel chestnuts near and dear to Turrentine-Agee’s heart.  She is completely at ease on this handful of old-school gospel blues, including Detroiter Tessie Hill’s “Yes He Can,” a simmering version of the Davis Sisters’ two-parter “Bye and Bye” (an early composition by Rev. Clay Evans), Mildred Clark’s “My Job is Working for Jesus,” and “Traveling Shoes.”

But it’s her cover of the James Cleveland composition, “He’s Using Me,” which really heats up There’s Gonna Be a Meeting.  “In the quartet world, you call them your sticks,” Turrentine-Agee remarked.  “They are songs that when all else fails, you grab your sticks and they put you over the top….’He’s Using Me’ has been my #2 stage stick since the 1980s.”

Given her performance of the song on this new CD, it’s likely to become stick #1.

gPod Picks: “He’s Using Me,” “Work It Out.”

Reviewed by Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.