Various Artists – Gospel Diaries Golden Memories (Live)

Various Artists
Gospel Diaries Golden Memories (Live)
Gospel Diaries (release date: October 7, 2024)

By Robert M. Marovich

Gospel Diaries Golden Memories is a collection of musical moments captured by historian Eric Maurice Clark during his visits with vocalists and musicians, most of whom have direct links to gospel’s earliest days, especially in Chicago, the genre’s birthplace city. Not captured in a professional studio but in churches and private homes, the 25 selections sound like field recordings, complete with background chatter, hallelujahs, testimonies, and other exhortations.

The songs, like the artists who perform them, hail from the traditional gospel catalog. As a whole, the project feels like an all-night sing, combining the communal joy of a Gaither Homecoming with the informality of the Million Dollar Quartet. The listener is an eavesdropper on the session.

Artists participating include Elsa Harris, Zella Jackson Price, Richard Jackson, Cliff Dubose, Dello Thedford, Leanne Faine (she sings her trademark “Holy Ghost” with the always-fiery Minister Tim White), and Cleo Kennedy. Among the younger generation in the mix are Calvin Bridges (he sings his “I Can Go to God in Prayer” with Vernon Oliver Price), DeAndre Patterson, and Bishop Dan Willis and Yvonne Ruff. Clark’s grandfather, Bishop Jesse McDowell, contributes a couple of gospels at the beginning and the end of the project. Loretta Oliver sounds as good as ever on “Something About God’s Grace.” The playlist also includes bittersweet selections from two veteran gospel singers who passed away recently, Rodessa Barrett Porter and Vernon Oliver Price.

James Herndon delivers most of the collection’s standout moments. He accompanies himself on piano on several selections, including “Where Is Your Faith in God” and “The Angels Keep Watching” (aka “Angels Watching Over Me”). Herndon proves he could – and ought to – get back in the studio and do an entire album of traditional selections, something along the lines of what Steven Dolins and The Sirens label has produced for legendary gospel singers and keyboardists over the past couple of decades.

Given the on-the-spot nature of the recordings, the organ and piano come through loud and clear, but many of the vocalists could have benefited from much better microphone placing. Exceptions are Pastor DeAndre Patterson of Chicago’s Christian Tabernacle, whose voice is so strong on “It Pays to Serve Jesus” that he probably didn’t need a mike at all; and the effervescent Zella Jackson Price on the chestnut “I Don’t Know About Tomorrow.”

Nevertheless, each of the singers and musicians demonstrates that a Zion song, like a Zion song singer, neither goes out of style nor loses its ability to touch the heart.

Four of Five Stars

Pick: “The Angels Keep Watching”