TBGB Reviews…The Georgia Mass Choir

Tell It
The Georgia Mass Choir
Savoy Records 2007
www.malaco.com

While the big gospel choirs have lost market share to the current crop of small groups, never fear: there are several powerful choruses that remain forces with which to be reckoned when it comes to gospel hits. The top choirs include the mighty Chicago Mass Choir, Mississippi Mass Choir, Wilmington-Chester Mass Choir, Dr. Charles G. Hayes & the Warriors, and Rev. Milton Biggham’s Georgia Mass Choir.

Georgia Mass’s latest project, Tell It, on Savoy Records – the principal force in promoting gospel choruses since Rev. Lawrence Roberts’ Angelic Choir signed with the label in the early 1960s – provides more of that voluminous sound that has been its calling card for the past 25 years.

The title track on Tell It is a radio-friendly energizer, though the hand clapper “Holy Ghost” is (and should be) the big hit, with a quintessential choir arrangement and mesmerizing vamp. “He’s a Battle Axe” continues in the traditional mold, but it’s more of a bouncy Baptist hymn than a Pentecostal shouter. Regardless, Georgia Mass always sounds best when working out of the traditional songbook, whether uptempo or in a slow and bluesy mood, as on “I Got a Right to Praise the Lord” and Dottie Rambo’s “I Go to the Rock,” a song it showcased to the entire world in 1996 when it backed Whitney Houston on The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack.

The Georgia Mass dugout of hard-singing female leads is plenty strong, too.

Tell It demonstrates that while gospel music continues to evolve musically and lyrically, the Georgia Mass Choir is firmly rooted in the classic choir sound. And sticking to their knitting hasn’t hurt them any, either, as far as I can tell.

Three of Four Stars