Debbie Orange Sings Church Live

Debbie Orange

Safety Zone Publishing Co. 2010

Debbie Orange Sings Church Live is a whole lotta scrumptious traditional, Chicago-style singing and musicianship.

Her bluesy sound tempered slightly with a dash of contemporary styling thrown in for good measure, Orange is the penultimate church mother, testifying through song in front of a congregation, her energy barely contained within the church’s four walls.

Orange recorded her debut album at St. John Missionary Baptist Church, where she is a member. On the album, she delivers new arrangements of classics and traditional-sounding songs in a deep, commanding evangelist’s growl.  Every note Orange sings pays homage to two of her inspirations, Albertina Walker and Shirley Caesar.  For example, on the opening track, “God’s Got Angels,” Orange bends and worries notes in an elongated version of the Angelic Gospel Singers’ standard “Angels Watching Over Me.”  “Safety Zone” is a fiery duet with Pastor Wendell Lowe on the classic quartet selection, “Standing in the Safety Zone.”

The St. John church choir supports the singer so ably and prominently throughout the project that the cover could almost have read Debbie Orange and the St. John Missionary Baptist Church Choir. Thanks be to the choir directors, Patricia Hill, Nathaniel Chavis III and Chedwick Allen Cathey, the latter being the longstanding maestro of the world-famous Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer Warriors. In fact, when Orange and the choir perform the church-wrecking “He Worked It Out” and awkwardly-titled but steaming “Congregational Medley Compilation,” you can hear Cathey’s Cosmopolitan influence on the arrangements as plain as day, with frenetic triplets on piano punctuating the performances for propulsive impact.

Those two tracks are the album’s standouts, although “God Is Good” is a mid-tempo pew rouser for which Chicago church choirs are so well known.  Another traditional piece is “Worthy of Thee,” written by the late Aubrey Pettis, talented singer and composer for the Helen Robinson Youth Chorus.

Minster Sherwin (Butch) Yancy of the famed Yancy Family of singers and musicians (Marvin, Kevin) deserves credit for a marvelous production. Recommended.

gPod Picks: “He Worked It Out,” “Congregational Medley Compilation.”