Spirituals: Best Sellers

When Mahalia Jackson sings, the angels rejoice and heaven moves slightly closer to earth. Such is the power of this phenomenal gospel singer. It's redundant to use her name and gospel in the same sentence-Mahalia Jackson is gospel music. Her alto and soprano vocal quality is pure soul, her...

When Mahalia Jackson sings, the angels rejoice and heaven moves slightly closer to earth. Such is the power of this phenomenal gospel singer. It's redundant to use her name and gospel in the same sentence-Mahalia Jackson is gospel music. Her alto and soprano vocal quality is pure soul, her...

Even nearly 35 years after her death, Mahalia Jackson is still considered the greatest of all gospel singers. A powerful vocalist whose musicianship was only matched by her sincerity, Jackson was a major star for decades yet always remained humble. Born in poverty in New Orleans, she began...

Papa Celestin and New Orleans Band was one of the most popular jazz groups for a short while in the early '50s. The veteran trumpeter (who was in his mid-sixties but seemed older) performed spirited versions of New Orleans standards, even getting to play once at the White House in the...

With 18 Decca tracks from 1938-1948, this CD is not only a good survey of some of Tharpe's best work, but one of the best compilations of any sort to illustrate gospel's crossover into lues, R&B, and secular music in general. Admittedly that's not the busiest...

Mahalia Jackson is rightly remembered as the definitive African-American gospel singer. Legend, Music Club's double-CD tribute compilation, presents 50 titles from her pre-Columbia period. Forty-eight of these originally appeared on the Apollo label, to which she was signed from 1946 to...

Jamaican-born and classically trained pianist Don Shirley made a lot of very accessible records for the Cadence label between the years 1954 and 1964. In 1997, the budget-priced Collectables series came out with the first in a long series of Shirley reissue compilations and called it simply...

Working with trumpeter/composer/arranger Terence Blanchard, vocalist Jubilant Sykes revives and reworks the sound of traditional African-American spirituals and hymns. These hardly sound dated, since Sykes and Blanchard have found the core of the songs and given them fresh, unpredictable, jazzy...

Cornell H. Williams is a blind Chicago street singer (his professional moniker is the Big DooWopper) who tackles lues, doo wop, gospel, R&B, and jazz with an amazing, ravaged, and beautiful voice that proves angels can show up in the most unlikely places. Williams isn't some down on...

In 2005, veteran jazz pianist Willie Pickens turned 74. By that age, most improvisers have long since recorded their most essential work. But Pickens may very well be an exception; recorded at various sessions in 2005, Pickens' Jazz Spirit project is quite possibly his crowning achievement...

The material on Jack o' Diamonds was recorded in 1949 but never released at the time due to John Lee Hooker's vast contractual problems. Even at this earliest point in his career, Hooker was tied up in contracts that would see him recording under several aliases in order to make some...

The EMI Gold issue The Old Rugged Cross collects the original LPs Whispering Hope and Peace in the Valley, a pair of spiritual sets recorded during 1962-1963 by Jo Stafford and Gordon McCrae. McCrae's tenor blends well with Stafford, and the material reflects a good range of selections:

At four discs and nearly 100 tracks, this is only part one of Rhythm and Blues Records' ambitious history of R&B, covering the years 1925 to 1942. Diverse and revelatory, it shows how R&B, like most strands of America's music, is woven from several different sources. Each...

Citizens of the United States of America should be grateful to the people who run the Document record label, based in Vienna, Austria, for having reissued so many rare North American phonograph recordings. A good case in point is Document 5546, Black Secular Vocal Groups, Vol. 1, a veritable...

A great collection of some of the musicians who frequented the clubs, bars, and churches in 1950s Detroit, when the lues scene and the city itself were both thriving. Originally put on tape by the legendary Joe Von Battle, who owned a record label and store, and even sang some himself, the...

Guitarist/vocalist Doug Wamble's second outing for Marsalis Music is a bit of a departure from the country blues-inflected sound of his debut disc, Country Libations. Featuring his longtime working ensemble of pianist Roy Dunlap, bassist Jeff Hanley, and drummer Peter Miles, Bluestate finds...