Margaret “Babe” Allison & the Angelics: Touch Me Again (review)

Margaret “Babe” Allison & the Angelics
Touch Me Again
Malaco Records 2008
www.malaco.com

For 86 years old, Margaret Allison is remarkable. She’s still singing, and sounding pretty good, too. She still possesses much of that piercing, plaintive voice that was the force behind the Angelic Gospel Singers, the sweethearts of the gospel circuit. But the fact that Allison is still vibrant in the 21st century is not surprising. God has smiled on her and on the Angelic Gospel Singers since 1949, when the group’s very first record, “Touch Me Lord Jesus,” not only became an instant gospel hit, but a gospel classic.

The title of Allison and the Angelics’ latest project, Touch Me Again, seems a play on the title of that first hit single. The CD is packed with singable traditional songs (“Pass Me Not,” for example), and new compositions by Darrell Luster that sound traditional, such as “Thank You for My Storms,” on which Allison asserts that “storms have made me what I am today.”

“When the Gates Swing Wide,” credited to Luster and Allison, puts a Dorsey bounce behind lyrics that portray heaven as a place where the saved will have “fifty miles of elbow room.” “God Has a Use for Me” pairs Allison with Luster on a song that is part tongue-in-cheek, part testimony as the legendary singer admits that while she “can’t do things like I used to do,” God still has a use for her. Touch Me Again is a tangible example.

Allison and the Angelics swing the quicker tempo numbers like “God Said It,” “Homecoming,” and “Work On Me” with such ease and familiarity that you’d swear you’d heard the songs years ago.

I learned that Ms. Allison was recently in the hospital but is doing okay, still on “the battlefield,” as the final song on the project attests. God bless Margaret Allison!

Three of Four Stars

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