TBGB Pick of the Week: September 11, 2006

“Tell Somebody”
The Texas Boyz
From the Blackberry album Never Left Me Alone
Blackberry 2006

The Texas Boyz started singing three decades ago, first as the Gospel Five, then as The Mighty Supreme Voices of Dallas, Texas. It was as the latter that the quartet hit the big time, earning recording contracts with Savoy, GosPearl, and J&B Records, and filling auditorium after auditorium.

The quartet – recently lauded at the Gospel Music Workshop of America – has stayed true to its roots while sounding fresh enough to please a new generation of gospel fans. “Tell Somebody” blends both the old and the new with ease. The song’s buoyant rhythm – really a strut – underpins the quartet’s ebullient call and response on “how good God is.”

Most distinctive is the lead singer’s testimony on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, turned into a metaphor of salvation that sounds as if it came out of the King James Bible: “Look at Katrina/Swept a whole town away/Several lives were lost/But the best part about it/Somebody was saved.”