I Got Two Wings
Lynn Abbott
CaseQuarter 2008
www.aumfidelity.com/casequarter

This is the story of an electric guitar-slinging, gospel music singing evangelist from the Church of God in Christ whose popularity was greatest in the 1940s and 1950s.

No, I don’t mean Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

A lesser-known but equally electrifying musician was Elder Utah Smith. Smith made only a few recordings, and fewer still were released commercially, but he remains indelibly stamped on the memories of those who knew him or heard him play his guitar, sing and preach.

In I Got Two Wings: Incidents and Anecdotes of The Two-Winged Preacher and Electric Guitar Evangelist, music historian and journalist Lynn Abbott does a beautiful job bringing the enigmatic Smith and his times into focus. With painstaking (and likely eyesight-weakening) detail, Abbott scanned tiny-print newspaper and magazine articles, gospel music programs, and other ephemera to piece together clue-by-clue the history of a man who was larger than life, and not just because he performed in a pair of enormous white wings.

Gospel and blues enthusiasts are familiar with Smith’s incendiary 1953 recording of his signature song, “Two Wings,” for Checker Records. On this disc, Smith sings and plays with abandon, producing fuzzy riffs with such ease that one wouldn’t be at all faulted for imagining that the evangelist single-handedly launched the rock-and-roll era.

I Got Two Wings is not only filled with great information, but it also includes many vintage photos, ads, record labels, and rare candid shots of the COGIC evangelist in winged regalia, surrounded by singing and clapping congregants.

The most fascinating information Abbott uncovered in his research was about the May 1941 Coffee Concerts, one of which featured gospel artists such as Smith and the pre-Drifters Thrasher Wonders. The Coffee Concerts were held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and produced by the Vassar-educated Louise Crane. Crane’s experiment was daring for the time, but she pulled it off perfectly, introducing new fans to the exuberance of sanctified singing and musicianship.

Abbott notes that despite Smith’s popularity on the tent revival circuit, he was ignored when it came to assigning greater positions of responsibility within the COGIC denomination. The evangelist responded with dignity, developing his own church and ministry, and touring with indefatigable energy until death claimed its earthly angel in early 1965.

An eighteen-track companion disc includes recordings discussed in the book, meaning all of Smith’s commercially-available singles, some super rarities, and songs by artists inspired by the two-winged evangelist and his Two Wing Temple of New Orleans.

What Abbott and Kevin Nutt’s CaseQuarter have done with I Got Two Wings ought to be the template for all gospel biographies to follow. Recommended.

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Written by : Bob Marovich

Bob Marovich is a gospel music historian, author, and radio host. Founder of Journal of Gospel Music blog (formally The Black Gospel Blog) and producer of the Gospel Memories Radio Show.