Essential Gospel – Classic Recordings: No. 144

“Love Open Doors for Me”
The Voices of Hope
From the LP Walk On By Faith
Capitol T 2480
1966

For those who have only heard the name of Thurston Frazier because a memorial choir is named after him at the Gospel Music Workshop of America, the man was a major force in gospel choral music. Music director at Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Los Angeles and acclaimed director of the Voices of Victory at Rev. A.A. Peters’ Victory Baptist Church, Frazier at one time traveled with the Wings Over Jordan Choir.

In 1962, Frazier joined James Cleveland and organist Billy Preston to direct the Angelic Choir of the First Baptist Church of Nutley, New Jersey on the first in a series of live recordings that climaxed in the historic “Peace Be Still” session a year later. Frazier was among the co-founders of the GMWA and worked with just about everyone who was anyone in gospel.

In addition, Frazier founded the Voices of Hope in 1957. The Voices of Hope were a one hundred-voice choir from Los Angeles that waxed two LPs for Capitol, the diskery that was only five years old when, in 1947, it released the very first gospel choir single (by the St. Paul Baptist Church Echoes of Eden). While most often associated with their 1961 hit, “We’ve Come This Far by Faith,” the Voices of Hope provide an equally captivating performance on their second album’s introductory track, the powerful, ballad-like “Love Open Doors for Me.”

The choir, singing at maximum volume, is propelled by the equally strident but tuneful shouting of organist Reginald Mitchell Shaw, who is also the song’s composer. Gospel legend Gwendolyn Lightner accompanies on piano; it is her gentle touch, with Alexander Hamilton on softly humming organ, which introduces the song and establishes a meditative, prayerful mood. Indeed, the juxtaposition of intense voices and understated accompaniment is what gives the song its deeply soulful feeling.

Like colleague Cleveland’s “Peace Be Still” and his equally inspired work with Detroit’s Voices of Tabernacle on “The Love of God,” Frazier’s “Love Open Doors for Me” redefines the gospel chorus as an ensemble known not only for quick-tempo church wreckers, but also for rendering slow songs with sublime tenderness.