Description
Not a Through Street is a gospel album by the American singer and songwriter Johnny Rivers, released on Priority Records in 1983, a short-lived gospel label established by CBS Records i 1981. The album was recorded by Wally Grant assisted by Michael Ross at Weddington Studios in North Hollywood, California; and was produced by Johnny Rivers with Joey Paige and Michael Canfield co-producing. Mixed by Allen Sides assisted by David Edgerton at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles, California. The album cover shows Johnny Rivers standing on Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Boulevard, a 25-mile long string, with an obviously misplaced sign bearing the message, “Not a Through Street.”
If you are a song stylist who does primarily cover songs, like Johnny Rivers, your record is all about what songs you choose. Johnny Rivers has always chosen songs he could throw his heart into. My favorite Johnny Rivers albums are ‘Homegrown’ and ‘Slim Slow Slider’, on which he takes songs by Van Morrison, Carole King, Jackson Browne, and others, and stamps them indelibly as his own. His Southern rock voice adds so much life and versatility that I often prefer his versions to the originals.
Rivers’ ‘Not A Through Street’ album has just been remastered and released on CD, with extensive liner notes, by Beat Goes On, a retro rock label. The key to the album is the cover. It shows, I think, Hollywood Boulevard, or some street with glittering signs for casinos and clubs, with an actual traffic sign reading “Not a Through Street”. His original opening song, «Nowhere Else to Go» is a conversion song, and the rockiest cut on this album. Some of the soul/pop songs covered here were already almost gospel songs, and it took very little to make them so.
It works very well with some songs, like «Stand By Me» because that was first already a gospel song, and even in the Stoller and Leiber version you can still hear the opening lines of Psalm 46. Similarly, the closing song, Dion’s «Golden Sun, Silver Moon» is already a gospel song, as is the traditional «An Unclouded Day», and Sam Cooke’s «A Change is Gonna Come» is so nearly one that Sam likely sang it that way. «New Meaning» is credited to G. Hendricks. I wonder if that is James Hendricks whose gospel rock songs «Muddy River» and «Glory Train» Rivers covered on earlier albums. In these earlier albums Rivers is clearly searching, but I still find it amazing that at that time he would cover songs like «Jesus is a Soul Man», and make them his own. [Gord Wilson]
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Nowhere Else To Go” – 2:59
A2. “A Change Is Gonna Come” – 2:46
A3. “Turning Point” – 4:16
A4. “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” – 3:14
A5. “Stand By Me” – 4:25
A6. “Believe In Me” – 3:56
Side Two
B1. “Shelter In Time Of Storm” – 3:51
B2. “The Uncloudy Day” – 4:03
B3. “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” – 3:19
B4. “New Meaning” – 3:43
B5. “Live It From Day To Day” – 3:31
B6. “Golden Sun, Silver Moon” – 3:37
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and 12-inch vinyl LP by Priority Records. Remastered and re-issued on CD by BGO Records in 2018 (licensed from Sony Music Entertainment), featuring extensive new notes.
A full-page advertisement for Johnny Rivers’ Not A Through Street was featured in the April 1983 issue of CCM Magazine.
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