TBGB Pick of the Week: April 13, 2009

“Power of the Holy Ghost”
Shirley Bell
From the OverBoard Records CD
God Can Do Anything!www.overboardrecords.com

At Chicagoan Shirley Bell’s CD release party for God Can Do Anything!, she belted out this song with such sanctified fervor that the audience was momentarily transported from the basement of Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church to a local Holiness church sanctuary.

Truth be told, “Power of the Holy Ghost” is an old-fashioned Chicago-style church-wrecker that the Fellowship M.B. Church Choir, of which Bell is an alumna, could certainly pull off. Or, to borrow a quote from author/historian Tony Heilbut, it’s the kind of song you heard “when gospel was gospel.”