CD Review – The Caravans: Paved the Way

A reunion CD from the Caravans was inevitable. Albertina Walker, Dorothy Norwood, Inez Andrews and Delores Washington have been sighted singing together on several occasions in the past couple of years, delighting audiences and wrecking churches, just as they did for five decades.

Recorded in Chicago at West Point Baptist Church, Walker’s home church, Paved the Way brings the Caravans’ reunion right to your living room. The project will please traditional fans as well as newcomers to the Caravans’ sound, though anyone who loves gospel music and is unfamiliar with the Caravans ain’t been paying attention.

No Caravans reunion CD would be complete without Inez Andrews demonstrating that she still has the vocal power to deliver “Mary Don’t You Weep.” Stepping in the role of Shirley Caesar, Evelyn Turrentine-Agee earns her stripes as the Fifth Caravan by performing an electrifying version of James Herndon’s “No Coward Soldier,” a song the group first recorded for Vee Jay Records in 1962.

The radio-friendly track right now is “Remember Me,” a James Cleveland composition led by Norwood. King James worked extensively with the quartet in the mid-1950s, so it is fitting that one of his songs be on the production.

The most interesting moment of the CD happens at the beginning, when Norwood recounts to the congregants at West Point what it was like to travel the Gospel Highway back in the day.

“As we stand here today, we don’t look like what we’ve been through,” Norwood relates (she’s right – the ladies sound and look great!). “We traveled through the South, through segregation, through Jim Crow, through Ku Klux Klan country, pavin’ the way…we slept in the colored hotels and rooming houses…but look at us today, we can go in the five-star Marriotts and Hiltons.”

You go, girls! This is the Caravans story, and they have a great story to tell. Listen up!