Hello, gospel music fans! Bookmark this blog because in the days, weeks, and months to come, it will feature a continuation of the same essential black gospel information you have enjoyed at www.island.net/~blues/gospel.htm. I’ll be passing along info on gospel pioneers, continuing the list of “Must Have” gospel songs from the beginning of recorded sound through today, discussing reissues of golden gospel as well as some of the best of the new sounds.
In the meantime, listen to Chicago’s WLUW 88.7 fm for “Gospel Memories” on Sunday, August 1 from 2:00 to 6:30 a.m. for great gospel, spirituals, and jubilees from a by-gone era. Don’t live in Chicago? No problem. Go to www.wluw.org Sunday morning and listen to the live webcast from your computer. Gospel Memories: your “great camp meeting on the air!” Best, Bob Marovich
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Written by : Bob Marovich
Bob Marovich is a gospel music historian, author, and radio host. Founder of Journal of Gospel Music blog (formally The Black Gospel Blog) and producer of the Gospel Memories Radio Show.
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WEEK 111:
“Remember Me, O’ Lord”
Cotton Brothers Song Bird 1017 1964
[available on CD: “Chosen Gospel Singers (1955-1963)/ Cotton Brothers (1964-1969)” Pewburner 589]
Those of you who have been following my essays for some time know that I have a penchant for doo-wop infused gospel. These “gospel ballads” – distinct from gospel blues and the sanctified hard-singing style popular in the 1950s and 1960s – are soft, reflective love songs to the Almighty. Arguably, it was this same amalgam of doo-wop and gospel that gave birth to the Impressions’ “For Your Precious Love” in 1958, and soul music in general.
Here’s another superb gospel ballad: “Remember Me, O’ Lord” by the Cotton Brothers. The Cotton Brothers were, asserts gospel historian Opal Nations, “a great underrated quartet.” In 1964, the group signed with Don Robey’s Song Bird label (a subsidiary of Peacock) and recorded a half-dozen singles for the company from 1964-69. Their first single, “Remember Me, O’ Lord,” is reminiscent of James Brown and the Famous Flames’ “Try Me” in its musical structure and plaintive intensity. The Cotton Brothers’ lead singer sounds tired vocally, but he nevertheless delivers a heartfelt performance against a restrained vocal and instrumental backdrop, complete with the characteristic doo-wop high harmony denouement.
If you enjoy the sound of James Phelps and the Clefs of Calvary, the Soul Stirrers’ work on Sam Cooke’s and J.W. Alexander’s Sar label, or are a big fan of early 1960s doo-wop, you will enjoy the Cotton Brothers’ “Remember Me, O’ Lord.”
Bob Marovich