Pastor H.E. Dixon & Truth TabernacleOld Time Country Church
Saw Mill Records (2007)
By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog
This CD escaped me upon its release nearly seven years ago, but Pastor H.E. Dixon & Truth Tabernacle’s Old Time Country Church is the best album of traditional gospel singing since Bishop G.E. Patterson’s two-volume Singing the Old Time Way.
The album sounds so much like an Alan Lomax field recording it could have been called “Old Time Brush Arbor.”
Although some of the songs are accompanied by a warbling B3 and thumping drums, the singing preacher and full throated choir emphasize hand clapping as the main rhythm, with the clatter of tambourines offering an additional layer of percussion. While performing live at the Chicago Area Gospel Announcers Guild summit last October, Pastor Dixon and the choir demonstrated complex clapping techniques that left audience members delightfully flummoxed.
“Ezekiel Said He Saw Him” (better known as “I Call Jesus, My Rock”) was written in the twentieth century by Chicagoan Virginia Davis Marshall, but the group performs it with polyrhythms that evoke the antebellum ring shout. It reminded me of the Paradise M.B. Church Acappella Choir’s rendition, recorded more than thirty years ago. “True Religion,” its lyrics pulled from the spiritual tradition, is also given the ring shout rhythm.
Pastor Dixon, whose Ministries of Truth Tabernacle is located in Cordesville, South Carolina, sings and shouts like a quartetter and gets downright gospel bluesy on “Shelf Behind the Door.”
Old Time Country Church earned the Prestige Award at the North Carolina Radio Announcers Guild in 2012 and one of its songs was featured on Time Life’s Shouting Down the Aisle compilation. Not surprising: the repetition, polyrhythmic handclapping, and vocal exuberance feel like a Pentecostal worship service without the sermon.
Bottom line: Old Time Country Church will have you clapping your hands raw.
Five of Five Stars
Pick: “Ezekiel Said He Saw Him,” “True Religion,” “Another Yes Lord.”
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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