CD Review: I Can’t Thank Him Enough — Bishop Larry B. Aiken & The Vision of Praise Celebration Choir

I Can’t Thank Him Enough
Bishop Larry B. Aiken & The Vision of Praise Celebration Choir
New Vision Records (2005)
1-866-363-7939, extension 102

While not all private press gospel recordings warrant attention, this one does.

This privately-pressed CD by New Vision Ministries of the Memorial Missionary Baptist Church of Kansas City is reminiscent of classic live church recordings from the past, Abraham Swanson’s Bibleway COGIC on King and Columbia’s Abyssinian Baptist Church recording with Alex Bradford being two that come immediately to mind.

The voices are not perfect and the production has its limitations, but on the other hand, the sound is original, honest, and energizing. What it lacks in polish it more than makes up for in effervescence.

Most importantly, I Can’t Thank Him Enough presents the Missionary Baptist worship experience — an experience that occurs with regularity every week in many thousands of churches throughout the land — with a genuineness that cannot be produced in a studio. This CD is about having church, period.

In particular, “Build Me a House” and “I Want to Go Where Jesus Is” have that early, electrifying Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer sound. Need I say more?