El McMeen – Gospel Guitar Treasures

El McMeen
Gospel Guitar Treasures
Piney Ridge Music (release date: February 18, 2018)

By Robert M. Marovich

Gospel Guitar Treasures is a meditative mix of familiar hymns, gospels, spirituals, and camp meeting songs played on solo acoustic guitar by superb picker Ellsworth “El” McMeen.

With sacred songs as his canvas, the talented McMeen, an ordained minister as well as musician, improvises, shifts rhythms, and otherwise offers subtle alterations of mood through unexpected chord changes while maintaining fidelity to the melodies. As such, the album anticipates his 2022 Piney Ridge Music issue with Ed Maina, Frets and Reeds: Gospel Style!

Gospel Guitar Treasures covers plenty of ecumenical ground by drawing from a variety of Protestant and Catholic hymnbooks. Tracks range from the Celtic-flavored “Be Thou My Vision” and Baptist favorite “In the Garden” to the Pentecostal congregational song, “There Is Power in the Blood.” His simple arrangement of “Drifting Too Far from the Shore” has a Carter Family country flair. McMeen even performs spirituals such as “Were You There,” the spritely “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” and a delicate version of “Jacob’s Ladder.”

A number of times on the album, McMeen cleverly combines two hymns into one seamless melodic presentation, as with “Let Us Break Bread Together” and “Kumbaya,” which share theme as well as melody. And unbeknownst to this writer prior to reviewing this album was that the melody of the Irish folk song “Star of the County Down” comes from a traditional hymn McMeen performs called “Kingsfold.” Since “Kingsfold” serves as the melodic foundation for “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” the listener gets a two-fer with this cut.

Gospel Guitar Treasures could just as easily be catalogued under New Age as Sacred because it is light and gentle, like a scented candle glowing in a darkened room. You can almost hear trees rustling in the wind and birds chirping in the background. There’s not much in the way of album notes here, but with 80 minutes of music, the riches are found in the listening.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “Drifting Too Far from the Shore,” “Kingsfold,” “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”