The pure conviction and power in their music converts listeners immediately

Ester Mae Smith and sisters Angela Taylor and Della Daniels have been singing together since childhood, but the way their voices blend sounds much older: singing a cappella at Mt. Mariah Baptist Church in Como, Mississippi, the women harness a stripped-down sincerity. In their voices, God is taken off the pedestal and put in arms’ reach.

“Now let us all go back to that old landmark,” the women sing on the first track of Get an Understanding…, an invitation by a gospel trio molded in the land of the blues. “God is able,” the women insist, in a swaying call-and-response: “He’s so good to me.” Their personal touch makes easy friends with old songs like “Meet Me at the River Jordan,” which reflect a long history of struggle and faith blooming into powerful music. “I had my chance, I made my choice and it’s nobody’s fault but mine,” they call out on the old spiritual; the line is about making a conscious decision to follow god, but when it comes to the Como Mamas we aren’t given as much of a choice: The pure conviction and power in their music converts us immediately.

Now, with the release of Robert Randolph Presents The Slide Brothers, co-produced by Randolph and John McDermott and featuring steel players Calvin Cooke, Aubrey Ghent and Chuck and Darick Campbell, the style gets its best shot yet at a wider audience. The album’s made up mostly of pop and rock songs with a spiritual bent (George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”) and spirituals with established crossover appeal (“Wade in the Water”), but also includes secular tunes (The Allman Brothers’ “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’”). The musicians — unfortunately, not a single track features all five — show off their funk, blues, country, rock, pop and jazz licks while staying true to their faith. “It’s always sorta been my vision to get everybody together and do this the right way, in a good studio, using songs non-church people could relate to,” Randolph says.

There’s a price for taking their music outside the House of God. After that first wave of Arhoolie albums, the Campbells began playing occasional festivals and venues (like coffeehouses) where alcohol wasn’t served. Although they still performed only religious material, they were banned from playing in the church. Randolph left the church by hitting the road to play his secular material, and never tried to return; Cooke, the patriarch of current musicians after playing services for 57 years, was dismissed for touring with Randolph. Ghent likewise was banished from his Florida church after doing sacred material at secular gigs, but was taken in at a Nashville House of God; because he’s now its pastor, he participates here only on songs that have a spiritual grounding. Most of them still worship in the House of God; they just don’t play services anymore, and they’re okay with the tradeout. “I enjoy exploring my music more,” Cooke explains. “I wanted to venture out.”

This music differs from their church music in more than one way. In 1999, I joined Ghent one Sunday at his church in Fort Pierce, Florida. He played nonstop through the entire service — improvising behind the pastor as she built her sermon to a climax, at which point she’d ease off as he either burned his improv to a crescendo or broke into a recognizable song the congregation began singing; then he laid back and she retook control. They passed the lead back and forth between music and preaching, amping it up and then softening it, congregation members speaking in tongues or shaking and writhing in the pews and aisles, for about three straight hours. Ghent played lines that emulated the tones and cadences of the preacher’s voice with a seemingly calm intensity that left his face and suit soaked in sweat. Even the best sacred steel albums, great as several of them are, can’t duplicate that — and similarly, The Slide Brothers can’t match those CDs.

In short, it’s likely to disappoint those who’ve heard any of the sacred albums. “Basically,” Ghent admits, “Here we simply play the songs. In church it’s different: We’re helping the preacher.” Still, there’s much here to love, especially if you’ve never heard any sacred steel. That’s apparent from the opening track, the Allmans’ “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’,” with Chuck Campbell’s sharp, knifing pedal steel and Darick’s fat lap steel swirling out sheets of sound while bro Phil lays down jagged funk and rock lines on guitar. Factor in Cooke’s equally driving vocals and the fiery outro jam and it’s a thrilling cut by any standards. Fronted by different guest vocalists, the Campbells likewise recast “My Sweet Lord,” Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You” and the churning, traditional “Motherless Children,” while starting their instrumental “Wade in the Water” with shimmers and ending it with screams. Cooke brings deep, urgent empathy with both voice and lap steel to his revivals of slide guitar blues king Elmore James’s “The Sky Is Crying” and “It Hurts Me Too,” effectively obliterating distinctions between blues and gospel, and also contributes his original, secular/sacred “Help Me Make It Through.” Ghent, who I hadn’t remembered as much of a singer, proves me wrong on Mylon Lefevre’s “Sunday School Blues” and concludes the album with a bit of levity on “No Cheap Seats in Heaven.”

All five steel men are adamant that despite House of God’s rigorous insularity, the sound has a strong future both inside and outside the church. Cooke notes that there are more teenagers within the HoG taking up the instrument than ever before, while Randolph adds that Jack White, Kid Rock, Luther Dickinson and current and former Black Crowes Chris Robinson and Jeff Cease are now playing gospel-based lap steel styles; Chuck Campbell has a Finnish student. “It’s an ongoing thing that everyone wants to do, now that they’re getting to understand the story behind the music,” Randolph insists. I just hope they do it right.

They never achieved much success, and disbanded in 1975—until the release of their early material by Heavy Light in 2009 (on the album Don’t Let Me Fall) brought them out of retirement. They’ve since toured the world, bringing the funk gospel to Australia and France and New York City. Their propulsive new record The Electric Word for Yep Rock is the Relatives’ first proper album, ever, and was produced by Spoon’s Jim Eno with help from guitarist Zach Ernst.

eMusic’s Mike McGonical spoke with the almost-77-year-old Reverend Gean West by phone about singing in church and rediscovering his voice.

You first sang professionally about 55 years ago, with the Sensational Golden Knights, in the late 1950s. And then in the 1960s, you were with the Southernaires out of Shreveport, Louisiana and the Mighty Golden Voices of Dallas, Texas. How did you get started singing?

I’ve been singing since I was five years old! A lady in the community had a little group. There were about five of us; she would take us around. I wasn’t a lead singer at the time; I was in the background as a tenor. As time went on and I grew up a ways, I began to really develop my voice, you know. I remember once the Southernaires went to Odessa, Texas. All the other fellas [singing lead] in the group had real pretty voices, like Sam Cooke’s, while I always had a more of a rough voice. Our manager would stick them pretty voices up all the time to perform. Then right at the end, he would call me out to sing.

In Odessa, he had me standing on the side until finally I sung this song about “Somebody Always Talking ‘Bout Me.” And man the people just went wild. As they used to say, “The church was tore up!” People were screaming all over the place, reacting to my singing. This older woman came up to me after and she said, “I seen that the Lord has his anointing upon you.” After that, I would sing background and lead; I became the main lead singer.

What were people’s reactions to your music, when you first put the Relatives together?

At the time, we were used to performing in the church, so that’s where we tried to take it. We wanted to bring this different sound into the church, you know? After we had rehearsed about a year, we started to test it, to see where it worked. So we got a little church that we used to perform in all the time, and we went in there. The younger generation was amazed! But the older generation was just kind of…looking at us. Later, the minister of the church came out of his office and said “I don’t know what they’re doing, but it sound good to me”! Still, we didn’t do too many churches after that.

After the Relatives broke up, I understand that you had a gospel radio program and that you also ministered? How was that different from leading these groups?

It was a lot easier, to be back home in one town, I will tell you that! But preaching, that’s something I’d done even before I was singing. As a little bitty boy, I used to preach for ‘em — and they would get a kick out of me preaching. This is back when I was three or four years old. I used to hear my dad fussing at my mother before church. So my message was that “My mother was good, but my daddy got the devil in him!”

Did saying that in church get you in trouble at home?

No, no. My daddy got a thrill over it. He was a minister, himself, you see.

After your older music was reissued, what was it like to reunite and perform with the Relatives again?

When all this came up, I didn’t realize I still had a voice! I’d been off for singing for about 15 years or more. When they found me, and we started talking, I got in touch with those that were still able to perform from the Relatives. The night we started rehearsing, I was surprised that I still had the voice to do it with.

One night, after we’d first brought it to the people, I went home and asked the Lord, “Why did you wait till I got old to bring it to me in this manner, in this way?” And a voice told me that, “The reason I want you to do it at your age is I want you to encourage other older people that it’s not over yet! And all they need to do is have the will to get up and they don’t have to just sit in the rocking chair. They just have to have the will. This is what I’m anointing you to do.” So, it’s just…I think it’s more or less a gift from God, my voice.

A blast of fresh vintage gospel soul

Gospel singer Rev. Gean West and his brother Rev. Tommie formed The Relatives in the early ’70s and disbanded by 1980, but their electrifying, innovative gospel-soul hybrid finally saw the light of day when their early singles and unreleased sessions were compiled on 2009′s Don’t Let Me Fall. The lo-fi glory of those recordings is now utterly fulfilled on this very long-time-coming full-on debut, The Electric Word, which augments the Relatives’ familial voices with members of Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears. The added members powerfully facilitate the Relatives’ remarkable ability to blend the Temptations’, Four Tops’ and Isley Brothers’ gnarliest acid-soul experiments with traditional gospel.

Rooted in the sort of a cappella harmonizing heard in “Trouble in My Way” and “I Will Trust the Lord,” the Relatives’ achieve spiritual lift-off in tracks like “Let Your Light Shine,” which blends a rock-hard groove with funky horns and a beatifically needling gospel organ. “Say It Loud (It’s Coming Up Again),” borrows more than a page from Brother Brown’s soul-power sermonizing, as the title hints. And on “Bad Trip,” which oddly equates doping and rent non-payment among its titular infractions, they sneak some dirty P-funk echoes into the church. Throughout, Rev. Gean’s powerful pumice-voiced preaching delivers the word unequivocally throughout on this blast of fresh vintage gospel soul.

Celebrating two decades of inspirational power and charisma

Like our divided souls, the separation between church and state — for pop music, that would be gospel and secular — is often crossed. So it was when an unidentified “Male Quartette” held a “Camp Jubilee Meeting” on the aptly-titled Little Wonder Records in 1910 and used the words “rock n’ rollin’” in their sermonizing; so it was when Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin ferried across the River Jordan and into the pop charts; and so it is today, when I am side stage at a gospel shout-out in Cleveland featuring Kirk Franklin, courtesy of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s induction week.

He’s not an imposing figure, but he packs a lot of dynamo into his deliverin’-the-word preacher’s stance. He doesn’t so much sing as exhorts, accompanied by tightly wound dancing and driving his backing band — a full complement of muscular bass and drums, male and female back-up singers — into ever more ecstatic grooves, akin to a soul revue. From my point on the compass, he could testify with James Brown or Prince, all no stranger to fire-and-brimstone.

But the key to Franklin is salvation. His early life — and he shares it freely with the audience when he enters the stage — was brutal. Abandoned by his mother, his grandmother encouraged his love of music, and held watch for him while he went through difficult times as a teenager. By 1990 he had seen the light, in more ways than one, and two years later founded the Family, a choir that gained him his first recording contract. The breakthrough came in 1995, and to celebrate two decades of leading his testifying clan, Sony Legacy has assembled this Essential two-disc set, beginning with Kirk’s first recordings for the GospoCentric label. “Silver and Gold,” “Speak to Me” and the epic “Family Worship Medley” herald his debut album’s inspirational power, his charisma and staunch belief in the healing power of song elevating him as well as his willing audience. Highlights on this compilation include a 2005 duet with Stevie Wonder (“Why”), his Nu Nation incarnation which brought more R&B seasonings to his loaves-and-fishes recipe, and a most recent cut from his newest release, “Hello Fear.” Live in Cleveland, he made me a believer, and begat the revelations of this Essential collection.

His first foray into tackling a songbook

Recorded at Atlantic Recording Studios in 1973 in between the country-funk of Shotgun Willie and the more conceptual boot-scoot of Phases & Stages, but not released until after the success of Redheaded Stranger, The Troublemaker marks Willie’s first foray into tackling a songbook, presaging efforts like To Lefty From Willie and Stardust. For this, he dusts off the old family hymnal for an album’s worth of gospel. But don’t think that Willie is gonna adhere to a certain perspective though, as the title track makes clear. Foregrounded is the jazzy interplay of his band rather than the solemn message of the Lord. Be it James Clayton Day’s steel guitar licks on “Uncloudy Day,” the quick shuffle of “There is a Fountain” and the harmonizing of Sammi Smith and Doug Sahm on “Where the Soul Never Dies” not to mention the man’s own licks on the freewheeling “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” Willie and Family come first on this album.

The best of this soulful CCM singer's oeuvre. So far.

This collection of the sight-impaired singer-songwriter's greatest hits is a delightful introduction to her varied charms. I only hope that fans of CCM realize how lucky they are that she is singing songs of praise. One of the most clichéd things you can say about a Christian performer is that they'd be a huge star if only they "sold out" and made secular music. With an artist like Ginny Owens, however — an incredibly talented musician who works within the genre conventions of mainstream pop — it's hard to avoid such thoughts. On "Open Arms," for instance, imagine if she were singing "he waits for me with open arms" rather than "He waits for me with open arms." But she isn't, and the difference is, of course, huge.

Owens writes decent songs, but her voice is the natural focal point of her music. Full-bodied and rich — like a more soulful version of Sheryl Crow or a less breathy Sarah McLachlan — her phrasing and delivery veers towards gospel even when her music approaches pop, folk-rock and contemporary R&B. A few of the songs take a less-than-subtle approach to pop, but much of it is surprisingly nuanced. The way the pedal steel and piano buoy her magnificent vocals on "Live Once," for instance, never loses its power, no matter how many times you listen.

Spirited late-era work from a legendary gospel group.

The Blind Boys of Alabama were never the very best Golden Age-era a cappella gospel act. But they have always been master showmen — and to the general audience, they're perhaps best known just for being, for lasting this long. As ambassadors of this great American sound, they've been awarded all manner of small honors in their later days, from backing up popular musicians such as Ben Harper and Steve Earle to (most awesomely) recording the theme song for one of the seasons of The Wire. In gospel circles, the Blind Boys are known for their hard-singing, full-throated "shout" style. They're renowned as well for a series of incredibly weepy, sweeping paeans to a deceased mother figure ("If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again" and "I Can See Everybody's Mother But Mine" being the most well-known).

This lengthy retrospective is culled from the group's late era, from the '70s to the '90s. Considering the group started in 1937 at the Talladega Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Alabama, it's certainly understandable that this was not their peak artistic success (that would be their sides from the '40s and '50s for Vee-Jay and Specialty). Sure, the voices have grown a touch hoarse and some of the backing arrangements are a tad hokey, but this is nonetheless incredibly spirited and emotional music.

The Staples' sepulchral yet bluesy sound was so original that their songs are instantly recognizable as theirs, and theirs alone.

The Staple Singers 'second album consists of songs recorded in 1959 and 1961, and there's not a dud in the bunch. The Staples were a seasoned group by 1961, of course. Over the course of almost a dozen singles and the 1959 LP Uncloudy Day, the Chicago-based family gospel act had built a powerful bridge from the sanctified blues of the '20s and '30s to the mournful vocal stylings of contemporary acts like the Blind Boys and Highway QCs. But the Staples 'sepulchral yet bluesy sound was so original that their songs are instantly recognizable as theirs, and theirs alone.

For years now, some of the Staple Singers 'greatest music has inexplicably been out of print or suffered from dubious reissues. Until now, their recordings from the late 1950s for Vee Jay were often issued on sketchy, crummy-sounding albums that hardly gave information as to what these tracks were, or where they were originally from. Their early 1960s Riverside back catalog remains a total mess, and their recordings for Epic have only been anthologized. What makes this extra strange is that the Staples were so important musically and socially long before they hit the big time with their pleasant and preachy funk-pop singles for Stax in the early '70s. Basically the house band for the Civil Rights movement, the Staples were among the best-selling gospel acts in the country. They were also the first African-American act to record a Dylan cover, while patriarch Pops Staples 'deep, reverb-saturated guitar sound has to be one of the most-copied/ least-acknowledged influences in the history of pop — from Keef to Sonic Boom.

Swing Low marks the start of a slow transition towards a more upbeat sound for the Staple Singers; it's not exactly dance music, but the songs have gone from sounding like swamp dreams to perhaps the accompaniment to a Saturday night Baptist service. Drummer Al Duncan's propulsive turn on "I'm So Glad" is a treat, while their dynamic arrangement of "The Old Landmark" has a curiously modern approach to call and response. This recording of their trademark "Uncloudy Day" is just a little bit faster and peppier, for instance, while these takes of "Good News" and "Pray On" are beautiful and forceful. Here are songs as eerie as they are earthy; if this music is not piped all throughout heaven that'll be a huge disappointment.

A lost album teeming with power, grace and soul.

Not only were the Blind Boys, fronted by the great Archie Brownlee, not in decline when they signed with Vee-Jay, they're still going strong, having crossed over to the pop arena via Paul Simon in the 1970s and recording a New Orleans relief album in 2007. Here, you can hear them in the studio, recording an album which never came out, although individual tracks came out as singles. Calvin Carter is producing (and Vivian, Calvin's sister and co-owner of Vee-Jay, also seems to be present), trying to keep Brownlee from blowing up the recording equipment with his voice, and the group members fine-tune arrangements on the fly. Mostly, though, they sing with astonishing power, grace and (unsurprisingly) soul, and the excitement is palpable. There's only one dud track, "Somebody's Mother," a recitation so saccharine it'll decay your teeth, but you can listen to it as a way of atoning for your sins, or as a fine example of gospel camp, which is always part of a good gospel program.

The Bible, from the mouth of Moses himself.

If this album is not considered a camp classic, it damn well should be. Recorded in a long-ago, benighted age before the invention of irony or even The Simpsons, this glorified book-on-tape finds Hollywood Moses applying his thunderous voice to the Old Testament. (He tackles the New Testament in a separate record; that album cover has a red background versus the blue milieu found here, thus foreshadowing our nation's political divide by decades.) Some might suggest it's sacrilegious to check out the Old Testament in order to laugh at the messenger — but in an age of irony, is there a more appropriate way to digest stories of Abraham, Jacob and friends?

This Rev. Sunday is not messing around one bit.

This recorded sermon begins innocuously enough, with a bit of song. We hear the tail end of "Down by the Riverside," a piano-led small chorus sing a line or two, and then we plunge from "Ain't gonna study war no more" into true fire-and-brimstone preaching. Black Billy Sunday was the alias of the Wisconsin-based Rev. Dr. McPherson, who recorded in the late 1920s / early 1930s. He'd named himself after the infamous baseball-playing preacher, Billy Sunday. This Rev. Sunday is not messing around one bit. The piece has the length, timbre and intensity of the darkest punk rock, but it's so single-minded and forceful, it's far scarier. Sunday doesn't bother with being witty and topical. Instead, he declaims "Unless you change your ways and give up your old habits, you will spend your eternity in hell. In hell!" The dude shouts "in hell" more times than you can count — even if you are trained in the mathematical sciences.

The right church is more raucous than even the heaviest of rockers.

It's 1956. Dwight Eisenhower is president, the Cold War is raging and Elvis Presley has revolutionized popular culture with "Blue Suede Shoes." After three notes on a big old church organ, we hear a preacher's voice, followed instantly by shouts from his congregation. "Subject: rock & roll! Can I get an Amen?!" he shout-sings (and yes, he receives enthusiastic "Amen"s). This guy's already revved up about a hot topic on pulpits all over the United States. "Rock & roll has just about brought about the disintegration of our civilization," the preacher declares, and as soon as he says "rock & roll" for the second time, a sinewy electric guitar appears.

"Rock & Roll Sermon, Pts. 1 & 2" by Elder Charles Beck has to be the raddest piece of anti-rock propaganda ever produced. "Some of the records are so suggestive 'til even the disc jockeys won't even play them!" Beck intones, a little bit louder now. "After a while, God's gonna set this world on fire!" he shouts, and now the unknown backing group is starting to let it be known that they can handle "blue" notes as well as any rock band. "After a while, this old world is gonna" — and here he pauses for effect — "rock & roll!" The musicians are still winding up, and you have to draw a breath in anticipation of the explosion you know is sure to come.

As the song moves onto its part two flip-side it's clear that not only has the backing group been restraining themselves, but that they can also match the greatest rock & rollers of their day. "Rock & roll is filling up the dope dens!" Elder Beck shouts, and from there he gets real gone, hammering home the fate of those who would succumb to the dreaded evil music with impassioned, beyond-hepcat fervor. "Rock & roll… Rock & roll all night long… Rock… One o'clock rock… Two o'clock rock… Three o'clock rock… Four o'clock rock… Five o'clock roll… Roll into the patrol wagon… Roll in before the judge… Rollin 'out of the courthouse… Rollin 'into the penitentiary… Rollin 'into the electric chair… Rollin 'out to the undertakers… AAAAAWAGGGH! WHOOO! ROCK AND ROLL! YEEEEAAAHHHHH! You better get readyyyy!"

And then, just as the band terraplanes into raw, revved-up rock, the guitarist peeling off bluesy licks that would make Keith Richards explode with jealousy, the song fades out. You only get a taste, and you want to hear at least an hour's worth. It's the perfect, teasing end to a fiery sermon that ostensibly denounces rock & roll and yet shows that the right church is more raucous than even the heaviest rockers.

The lines between gospel and blues just got a heck of a lot blurrier.

The lines between gospel and blues have always been blurry as heck (well, musically at least). And they just got a bit blurrier thanks to the Spiritualaires of Hurtsboro, Alabama's Singing Songs of Praise.

The quartet's relatively loose style is closer to the moaning roots of gospel spirituals than your typical Golden Age hard shouting or jubilee-style group. A few songs recall the recordings that the Virginia-based Starlight Gospel Singers made for the Music from the South series in the 1950s. Quite a few of the Spiritualaire songs are mournful dirges, but the album's far from a downer. Fans of the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi will not be disappointed by the Spiritualaires. Actually, if you look at YouTube old clips of the Blind Boys playing live on TV in the '50s and early '60s, you'll see that they had a really rocking and guitar-based sound in performance. If you can imagine the guitar-fueled version of the Blind Boys at half-speed, you're close to the subtle glories of this music.

Supple ballads and funky pop songs from one of CCM’s finest.

It's hard to get enough of singer Ginny Owens'uplifting 2005 album. The young blind singer's fourth release, it not only was the first album to show her full range as a singer and a songwriter, it's arguably the best CCM release of all of that year. Released on legendary artist Michael W. Smith's Rocketown label, the album's supple ballads and funky pop songs outshone anything on mainstream radio, save perhaps Fiona Apple. Ginny's album is the kind of non-preachy and exceptional record you just want everyone to hear; introspective yet soulful, it's an ideal record for turning on someone to this music.

An expert fusion of praise and worship numbers and gentle ballads.

Pleasant soft-rock worship act Watermark is here joined by a host of adult contemporary peers (including Point of Grace and Charlie Hall) on this live 2006 album, which marks the act's farewell to the industry. The husband and wife duo Nathan and Christy Nockels revisit their four-album career and beyond to their roots in Sons And Daughters, in a final show at their home congregation in Brentwood, Tennessee, Fellowship Bible Church. There are praise and worship numbers and gentle ballads, though Watermark's real talent is of course expertly fusing the two together.

An excellent overview of the first seven years of one of Contemporary Christian music’s strongest singer-songwriters.

This 2004 release is an excellent overview of the first seven years of one of Contemporary Christian music's strongest singer-songwriters. The album kicks off with the beautiful hit tune "Deep Enough to Dream,” and there really isn't a dud amongst this whole collection (which boasts five unreleased tracks). It's easy to get lost inside Rice's songs; there's a delightful specificity to his tunes, a conversational tone that belies a love of language and knack for phrase-turning. It's always devotional, and very rarely clichéd, and while it's easy to see why others want to cover him, as with most things it's best to get as close to the source as possible. On the standout track "Power of a Moment," Rice speaks directly to the Creator: "You know the number of my days/ So come paint your pictures on the canvas of my head and/ Come write Your wisdom on my heart/ Teach me the power of a moment."