Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal

Description

Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal is a multi-artist compilation released on Numero Group in 2006. Featuring eigthteen indie singles sides and album tracks released between 1968 and 1981, researched and compiled by Rob Sevier. A follow-up album entitled Good God! Born Again Funk was released by Numero Group in 2010.

The genesis of Numero’s Good God! series, dedicated to divergent sounds from devout records, A Gospel Funk Hymnal explores injections of a profane funk into gospel music’s sacred beatitude. Completing the circular journey of a hallowed rhythm, these tracks carry sanctified messages as passed through the earthly delights of the bass and guitar groove. Mixing primitive harmonies, spacious breaks, jungle percussion, elderly rappers impersonating the devil, cast recordings, thumping bass, and James Brown impressionists, this is old time religion slathered in funk’s sinful gravy. Such a collection can only come together retroactively. “Gospel funk” lays its claim to genre only in the way that “deep soul” or “acid folk” do, as categories created by collectors and enthusiasts, ways of defining subsections within subsections. No label, artist, or producer focused strictly on funky gospel music; rather, a couple hundred groups kept a funkier number in their repertoire, then cut a budget gospel record. From Canadian Trevor Dandy’s Don’t Cry Little Tree long-player comes the laid-back «Is There Any Love»… or check out how Sam Taylor might’ve opened his own soul-stirred Jesus Christ Superstar on «Heaven on Their Minds». Your pilgrimage begins here. [Numero Group promo]

That soul gospel nowadays incorporates most every form of R&B and hip-hop to be heard in the secular world is no great revelation. And Candi Staton, The Mighty Clouds of Joy and others can tell you about purposefully adopting disco for African-American sacred music. That kind of fusion has yielded some fine artistry, but historically, many saved and savvy hipsters have been there and done that.

The relationship between funk – the soul music derivative wherein every instrument’s percussive quality is exploited and groove and texture become tantamount to vocal athletics and melody – and gospel has been less acknowledged. ‘Good God!: A Gospel Funk Hymnal’ goes a long way in documenting the history of, as George Clinton might say, keeping the beat on the one and singing of the One.

This collection of eigthteen indie singles sides and album tracks released between 1968 and 1981 makes a strong case for just how appropriate the churning, sometimes ominous persistence of funk is to traditional soul gospel vocal style and lyrics of salvation. At its most Spartan, it’s just a wildly flailing drummer backing the minor key imprecations of Detroit choir Voices of Conquest on «O Yes, My Lord». Trevor Dandy’s «Is There Any Love» recalls Timmy Thomas’s keyboard-laden classic «Why Can’t We Live Together», but here with interwoven congas and drum-kit with a subtler touch to the keys.

More sumptuously, Preacher & the Saints’ «Jesus Rhapsody Part 1» sports the strings and harp glissandi of a Holland-Dozier-Holland production for The Temptations. A throwback to the R&B of a few years earlier, the Mighty Voices of Wonder kind of convert a Sam and Dave hit into «I Thank the Lord».

Seeing as how funk’s commercial primacy paralleled the Black Power movement and other powerful gusts of social conscience, it’s understandable that similar concerns would find their way in the gospel music of the time. The Triumphs, a vocal group signed at one time to to VeeJay Records but ignored in light of what the label was doing with their Beatles catalogue, make out like The Delfonics gone politicized and sanctified on «We Don’t Love Enough». The Modulations echo the fire-and-brimstone preaching of decades past in describing their own 1977 times and lay down righteous danceability on «This Old World Is Going Down».

Acts who aspire for the slickness of contemporaneous black radio hit fodder but don’t quite have the budget nor facilities make for some compelling listening. Cliff Gober’s take on the hoary «A Poor Wayfaring Stranger» takes the strings and horns from what could be any soul or disco record of the mid-’70s, but with an appealing roughness. The co-ed Apostles of Music’s «Look Where He Brought Us From» aspires to James Brown at his most rhythmically inventive, but not every back-up band can be The JB’s. It’s still a jam.

A couple of Good God’s more arresting offerings come from, of all places, original cast albums. The Soul of Jesus Christ Superstar worked as a response to the similarly-titled rock opera, and Sam Taylor’s rendition of «Heaven On Their Minds»: from it stands as one of the more polished offerings here. Stranger still, «Thoughs Were The Days» [sic] from the obscurer Two Sisters From Baghdad, produced by a large African Methodist Episcopal church in Detroit, gives LaVice (Hendricks) & Company a chance to voice Satan’s complaint of how his domain used to be a much more swinging place before a massive revival.

Truthfully, every track here cooks. If this is the beginning of a wave of such musical archeology, it has begun with a most fruitful first dig. [Jamie Lee Rake, The Phantom Tollbooth, 2006]

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CD tracklist:

01. Preacher & The Saints – Jesus Rhapsody Part 1 – 3:19
02. 5 Spiritual Tones – Bad Situation – 2:03
03. Mighty Walker Brothers – God Been Good To Me – 3:01
04. Masonic Wonders – I Call Him – 3:46
05. Mighty Voices Of Wonder – I Thank The Lord – 3:17
06. Voices Of Conquest – O Yes My Lord – 2:27
07. Gospel Comforters – Jesus Will Help Me – 3:01
08. Horace Family – God Will Dry My Weeping Eyes – 3:11
09. Trevor Dandy – Is There Any Love – 4:30
10. Sam Taylor – Heaven On Their Minds – 3:02
11. Triumphs – We Don’t Love Enough – 3:34
12. Brother John Witherspoon – That’s Enough – 1:49
13. Shackleford Singers – God Is All Over Me – 3:12
14. Cliff Gober – A Poor Wayfaring Stranger – 3:25
15. Universal Jubileers – Childhood Days – 4:04
16. Modulations – This Old World Is Going Down – 3:39
17. Apostles Of Music – Look Where He Brought Us From – 3:39
18. LaVice & Company – Thoughs Were The Days – 3:05

Note: Also released by Numero Group ‎as a 12-inch vinyl double LP. Available at Bandcamp: https://goodgodseries.bandcamp.com/album/good-god-a-gospel-funk-hymnal