Various Artists – How Sweet It Was

Various Artists
How Sweet It Was: The Sights and Sounds of Gospel’s Golden Age
Shanachie/Spirit Feel 2010
www.shanachie.com

I didn’t think gospel authority Anthony Heilbut could top his superb compilation from 2005, When Gospel Was Gospel, but he has done so and then some with How Sweet it Was.

For one thing, How Sweet It Was includes a CD and DVD (hence the subtitle) so gospel enthusiasts can hear and see the genre’s leading performers in their prime. Secondly, the package contains several rare-as-hens-teeth unissued audio tracks that are for the most part live performances. Among these are cuts from Mahalia Jackson’s 1951 appearance at the Music Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts. Heilbut calls Mahalia’s Music Inn program a “triumph,” and hearing her trumpet “Didn’t It Rain” before a mixed audience, you realize it is as close as you can get to the raw, unfiltered New Orleans Halie from “back ‘a town” before she signed with Columbia Records and became a household name.

On an unissued live performance of “Coming Home” by Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes, Dot sings herself happy and Claude Jeter of the Swan Silvertones steps in to finish the song, giving listeners a unique opportunity to hear the two iconic artists working the same number.

Among the previously released selections, Morgan Babb and the Radio Four’s “My Imagination of Heaven” (1955) takes off on a rollercoaster of rhythm propelled by a washboard or string bass, or both. This Nashville quartet was cranking out the explosive rockabilly rhythm an easy two years before Elvis, Scotty and Bill raised the roof at the Memphis Recording Service in July 1954.

The project’s DVD is compiled from “TV Gospel Time” performances of the early ’60s and offer us rare glimpses of the performance techniques of artists such as Madame Emily Bram-Bibby, the Rasberry Singers, Robert Anderson, and Sister Jessie Mae Renfro. If you believe, as I do, that gospel artists are at their best when in front of a congregation vs. in front of a studio microphone, the DVD will strengthen your argument.

Toss in an authoritatively-written 32 page illustrated booklet by Heilbut, author of the classic book The Gospel Sound, and How Sweet It Was is not just a retrospective of that sweet, sweet spirit of gospel, it is a teaching opportunity.

Five of Five Stars

Reviewed by Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.