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God's Got It: The Legendary Booker And Jackson Singles

by

Reverend Charlie Jackson

 
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Avg: 4.5 (47 ratings)

Raw, bluesy gospel that's remarkably rough

  • We Say...

    Review by Mike McGonigal

    The Rev. Charlie Jackson makes absolutely incendiary music — it's bluesy, raw gospel that is heavy, intense and remarkably rough around the edges. Culled from obscure indie seven-inches recorded in the '70s, God's Got It: The Legendary Booker and Jackson Singles is a celebration of the sanctified blues with a sound so timeless that it could just as easily date from 20 or even 40 years earlier. The title song is pure visceral stomp, a plank of wood and hand claps serving as percussion while the congregation on backup vocals sings loudly and sublimely. Even if you've never heard the work of compatriots such as Luther Magby, Blind Willie Johnson, Rev. Utah Smith, Sister O.M. Terrell and Rev. Louis Overstreet, the joys of this music are very tough to miss. This stuff has large crossover appeal — it's as likely to appeal to aficionados of old school black gospel as to fans of ragged Delta blues and frazzled alt-rock.

  • They Say...

    Review by Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

    This is the debut release from CaseQuarter Records, a offshoot of Stephen Joerg's excellent AUM label. While AUM Fidelity is dedicated to the new jazz coming out of New York City, CaseQuarter is dedicated to sacred and gospel music from the American South. What better way to kick off a new label than with the collected Booker and Jackson singles of the obscure but monumental singer/guitarist Reverend Charlie Jackson, whose music is deeply rooted in the Mississippi Delta tradition? His singles for the the Booker label in New Orleans (and his own Jackson label created after Booker folded) make manifest the inseparable connection between the sinning music of Saturday night and the sanctified music of Sunday morning. Like Fred McDowell and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Jackson's rhythm-conscious sound is one that comes from the well of the body; he can stir an entire house using only his electric guitar and a stomping board, and his music is expressed by a heart that seeks deliverance and praises its creator. These 18 tracks certainly reflect history, but, more than that, offer a striking view of how country blues became urban blues in the arms of Southern churches. Here we get the stomping rumbling bluesy gospel shout of "God's Got It," the truly off-the-rails musical sermonizing (that is truly terrifying in its intensity) of "Wrapped Up and Tangled Up in Jesus," and the call and response of "The Goodness of God" and "Testimony of Rev. Charles Jackson," a first-person deliverance tale in which Jackson recalls a stroke and his miraculous rehabilitation. Interestingly enough, a collection like this -- which is as fun to listen to as any record of partying blues -- makes something very plain when compared with other albums of the ilk and contrasted against white Southern gospel: the music of the black Southern churches concentrates on the themes of deliverance, redemption, and mercy, rather than on fire and brimstone and the Apocalypse. Forgiveness and mercy are the reasons for so much joy, even in the most primitive, rollicking, moaning blues found here (check out "Something to Think About.") Overall, this set deserves to be sold along with the Fat Possum recordings from the Delta for sheer listening pleasure, and paid as much attention to as Arhoolie's Sacred Steel series. That's right, Fat Possum-style electric guitar sacred gospel music -- what an auspicious beginning for a new label.

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