Essential Gospel — Classic Recordings: No. 127

“Rock-A-Ma-Soul” Paul Breckenridge and the Four Heavenly Knights
King 4182
1947
[hear it on www.group-harmony.com/I_Shall.htm]

Paul Breckenridge was gospel’s answer to the Ravens’ Maithe Marshall: both possessed uncannily high voices with similar coloring and timbre. Both men sang notes that soared effortlessly above their respective mortal vocal ensemble brethren.

A member of the famed spiritual and gospel choir Wings Over Jordan, Breckenridge also worked as a vocalist with Lucky Millinder’s Orchestra during the late 1940’s. Denizens of late night television might even catch Breckenridge with Millinder in the 1948 musical/variety film Boarding House Blues.

“Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” is always given a lively treatment, but it is even more fun and exciting in the care of Breckenridge and the Four Heavenly Knights. A performance King Records termed appropriately a “rhythm spiritual,” “Rock-A-Ma-Soul” features Breckenridge floating vocally above the Four Heavenly Knights, also known as the Reliable Gospel Singers of “Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt” fame: Thomas Delaney, Kelly Williams, Anderson Shaw, and Thomas Hines. A steady drum beat accompanies this recording three years before percussion gained a position of greater prominence on recordings of gospel artists such as the Original Five Blind Boys and the Bells of Joy.

Most impressive on “Rock-A-Ma-Soul” is Breckenridge’s ability to leap athletically from rough baritone to glass-shattering falsetto in the space of one beat. While the dominance of the high tenor would become de rigeur during the doo-wop Fifties and early Sixties, it must have been thrilling to hear such prodigious singing during the dawn of the black vocal group era.

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