Noah Found Grace – A Compilation of Jamaican Gospel Music

Various Artists
Noah Found Grace: A Compilation of Jamaican Gospel Music
Social Music Record+Tape Club (2011)
http://www.socialmusicrecords.com/

They cause crate diggers and on-line auction trawlers to pause in their pursuit.

Seven-inch singles with unpretentious labels that contain selections by groups called the Heavenly Dreamers and the Joybells. Are these private presses of black quartets or…the Kingston address on the label tips us off that this is an example of one of the most enigmatic of subgenres: Jamaican gospel.

For those who, like me, have seen these discs and stared at them quizzically, Mike McGonigal has something for us. Producer of the acclaimed Fire in My Bones collection of obscure gospel recordings, McGonigal has released a collection of equally obscure Jamaican gospel culled from 45s produced in the 1960s and 1970s. Pressed for the Social Music Record+Tape Club on characteristic bootleg-looking twelve-inch vinyl, Noah Found Grace features seventeen well-restored vintage tracks.

Interestingly, the selections are influenced more by Southern gospel and Grand Ole Opry-style country than rock steady. McGonigal explains in the liner notes: “[r]adio stations throughout Jamaica used to shut down early in the evening, allowing high-wattage AM stations from the American South to waft in unimpeded.” Thus, many tracks, such as L. Winter’s version of “The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow,” is accompanied by sobbing country pedal work the likes of which you would hear on Hank Williams and Hank Snow records. Gordon and Berry’s “The Land of Beulah” and Grace and Peggy’s “How Great is the Lord” sound like mid-century white quartet harmony singing.

Other songs on the compilation demonstrate a stronger indigenous Jamaican/island influence, such as Otis Wright’s rhythmic “It’s Soon Be Done,” Glen Francis’ “All My Days are Numbered” and “The Comforter Has Come” (aka “I Can Tell the World”) by Alton and Otis – presumably Otis Wright, who is the best known of the artists presented here. Jo Johnson’s cover of the classic “Leave it There” features reggae-like guitar chicking on the backbeat. “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” by Audrey Williams and the Joybells crosses Pentecostal and Caribbean.

The singles collected for the album come from McGonigal’s own collection, with an assist from Kevin Nutt of WFMU’s “Sinners Crossroads” gospel radio show.

Noah Found Grace is fascinatingly enigmatic and, to my knowledge, the only compilation of Jamaican gospel singles available today.  If you want a copy, move quickly to secure a subscription to the Social Music Record+Tape Club, because a third of the subscriptions have already sold out.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “All My Days are Numbered,” “Something’s Got a Hold on Me.”