Eddie Robinson – This is My Story, This is My Song

Eddie Robinson

The Sirens Records (2011)

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

Eddie Robinson isn’t a household name in gospel music, but he should be.

For decades, his keyboard work has supported a chapel full of Chicago gospel singers, most notably the first Queen of Gospel, Mahalia Jackson.  He traveled the world with Jackson as her accompanist and member of the singer’s trusted inner circle.

But Robinson never commandeered his own project until now.  Thanks to Steven Dolins and The Sirens Records, This is My Story, This is My Song gives Eddie Robinson his propers and a chance for him to demonstrate to fans old and new that after all these years, he still has the touch.

That touch is the finesse an accompanist must have to support a gospel singer, whose timing and tempo are more often governed by the spirit than the metronome.  But that’s the way it is: gospel, after all, is an improvisational style.  Since rarely are two performances alike, an unwitting accompanist can end up with fits of musical clumsiness trying to follow the chart.  To support a gospel singer with effortless grace and musicality is both gift and craft.  Eddie Robinson has a lifetime’s worth of both.

Robinson chose his own group of singers and musicians to assist him on his album.  Like a sacred Count Basie, he is content to play piano with verve while others sing.  One of his vocalists, Ms. Uletta Jackson, has old-school provenance, having worked with Isabel Joseph Johnson during the days of her television program, Rock of Ages.  Especially impressive are the vocal talents of Milas Armour III and Phinus Alexander, Jr.  Both men possess expressive and robust voices, giving forth the kind of power that Jimmy Rushing brought to jazz.  Alexander takes the simple hymn, “Jesus Loves Me,” and rounds it out with a Pentecostal “Yes Lord” chant.  Armour renders “His Eye is on the Sparrow” with a voice that reaches the back row.  Robinson is the constant, the musical resin that blends the pieces into a song performance.

This is My Story, This is My Song is also billed as a tribute to Mahalia Jackson on her forthcoming Centennial and to the Gay Family, for whom both Robinson and Dolins have special affection.  Songs such as “Elijah Rock” and “When the Saints Go Marching In” pay tribute, respectively.  The production quality of The Sirens releases is always top-notch and this release is no different: the players sound like they are in your living room.

Eddie Robinson and his combo on This is My Story, This is My Song take us back to church for real, with toe-tapping Zion songs that evoke church mothers in their finery, hats perched high on their ‘dos, fans waving in time to the music, shouting their troubles over on a Sunday morning.

Picks:  “Down by the Riverside,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “I Won’t Complain.”