Various ArtistsI Heard the Angels Singing:
Electrifying Black Gospel from the Nashboro Label, 1951-1983
Tompkins Square (release date: December 10, 2013)
By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog
When it came to recording post-war gospel quartets, Ernie Young’s Nashboro Records of Nashville gave Don Robey’s Peacock Records a run for its money. A major among the independents, Nashboro captured (and thereby preserved) gospel singing from some of the leading quartets, groups, and soloists of the golden age and beyond.
Although a few Nashboro artists have been anthologized commercially on CD— Maggie Ingram, the Hightower Brothers, and Madame Edna Gallmon Cooke come to mind—a chronological taste of Nashboro from soup to nuts has not been available to the public until now.
Thanks to Tompkins Square, I Heard the Angels Singing, a four CD gatefold box package of 80 Nashboro gospel goodies, with liner notes by Opal Nations, is ready for the holidays. The box set is produced by gospel music mavens Mike McGonigal, Kevin Nutt, and Tompkins Square founder Josh Rosenthal.
Young had two significant assets: his record store/mail order business and an association with WLAC radio, the 50,000 watt Nashville station that could be heard just about all the way to the moon. With Nashboro Records spinning on WLAC turntables and Young selling the discs across the country, the company couldn’t lose, even in the earliest days, when its recording equipment was primitive and the piano wasn’t always kept tuned.
The first CD of I Heard the Angels Singing is arguably the most captivating because it contains the set’s most uninhibited and raw recordings of quartets and groups. The great gospel basses Dickie Freeman and Jimmy Jones can be heard with the Skylarks and Sons of the South, respectively. Former Soul Stirrer R.H. Harris chirps like a bird on the Christland Singers’ “You’ve Got to be Born Again,” and a pre-soul Lou Rawls is on the Chosen Gospel Singers’ “Trouble of this World’s Condition.” Nashboro’s top selling quartet of the 1950s, the Swanee Quintet, is here, as is the husband-wife duo the Consolers, whose “Give Me My Flowers” is a classic.
For sheer hard-singing, the Fireside Singers’ “Get Your Soul Right” (1953) and the Sons of Faith’s “Since I’ve Been Born” (1961) are tough to beat, although tracks by the Bevins Specials and the Hightower Brothers, with the late Sugar Hightower on lead, come close. The Brooklyn All Stars’ “I Stood on the Banks of Jordan,” featuring Hardie Clifton on lead, captures the song’s lyrical angst better than any version I’ve ever heard.
I Heard the Angels Singing does not limit itself to quartets. Nashboro’s chief gospel thrushes Edna Gallmon Cooke, Lucille Barbee, Maggie Ingram, and Dorothy Love Coates are also on the anthology. Among the males, Brother George Carter renders E.O. Excell’s “I Do, Don’t You” with the kind of vocal embellishment that drove a young Thomas Dorsey to sacred songwriting when he heard Rev. Nix sing the hymn at the 1921 National Baptist Convention. On the other hand, Brother Joe May would have been better represented on the set by his husky “I’ve Been Dipped in the Water” instead of “Silent Night.”
The audio quality of the recordings is very good, despite the fact that some selections sound pulled directly from the original discs. The chronological presentation enables the listener to hear gospel music transition from its minimalist post-war combo of piano/guitar/organ, akin to a gospel garage band, to the contemporary influence of a full-blown soul sanctified band of musicians.
Although gospel music after 1970 moved further from its traditional roots, Nashboro continued to record groups that modernized only enough to remain relevant but not so much that they lost their zest. Gospel zest is offered aplenty on I Heard the Angels Singing, demonstrating that a label could grow big time and yet remain rooted in holy ground.
Five of Five Stars
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.
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