TBGB Reviews…The Reunion: Live In Chicago – Side A

When Milton Brunson organized the Thompson Community Singers in 1948 while attending Chicago’s McKinley High School, he could hardly have imagined how his community gospel choir would inspire the establishment of similar organizations throughout the country, much less that members of his group would still be captivating audiences sixty years later.

Yet the Thompson Community Singers – named for Brunson’s pastor in ’48, the Rev. Eugene Thompson, and now affectionately known as the “Tommies” – was the first community gospel choir in the country. Beginning in 1963, the choir released a collection of albums and hit singles that secured the group’s place in gospel music history. Their “I’ll Trade a Lifetime” (Hob) is among the finest gospel choir recordings of all time. Although Brunson’s death in 1997 rent the choir asunder by 2000, alumnus Darius Brooks gathered former members for reunion recordings to coincide with the choir’s 60th anniversary in 2008.

The first installment, “Side A,” revisits the Tommies’ 1980s and 1990s victories, a time when the group’s traditional sound was merged with contemporary arrangements and melodies. Songs from this era represented on “Side A” include 1986’s classic “Safe in His Arms,” reprised nearly note for note by Beatrice Gardner and Pamela Crawford. Leanne Faine, a human ball of energy, demonstrates her incendiary Chicago-style singing on 1987’s “Guess You’re Wondering,” while another equally compelling and fiery Tommies star, Kim McFarland, performs “For the Good of Them.” Brooks himself contributes a bluesy vocal on “If I Be Lifted.”

All but two songs on the project are Brooks’ own. One that isn’t – “Jesus is a Rock” (in the project’s opening medley) – comes from the creative pen of another Tommies product, Percy Bady, an accomplished songwriter, producer, and artist. In many respects, the time period covered on “Side A” could be called the Tommies’ “Brooks-Bady” era.

Overall, the reunion choir has proven that a fountain of youth exists, as it sounds every bit as good as it did in the Eighties. Prime proof of this can be heard on the project’s best track, “Available to You,” the title track of the Tommies’ 1988 album.

The quality CD booklet highlights the Tommies’ many awards and achievements, and intersperses photos of the choir in performance mode.

Are we looking forward to Side B? Need you ask? The follow-up will be released April 2008. Meanwhile, God rest ye Milton Brunson. Your legacy continues sixty years on.

Three of Four Stars