Truly great gospel music
I enjoy sharing gospel music information with my friends.
Recently on a gospel music message board, I asked a trivia question about a well-known classic gospel quartet album.
Knowing me, it was not surprising that the gospel quartet doing it was the Couriers, and it happened to be about their first stereo LP, "I Believe".
Not only was it probably the first gospel quartet album issued with a "gatefold" cover(one which folded out), but I wanted the readers there to consider the place and way it was recorded.
The album itself is noteworthy for its inspired renditions of "It Is Well With My Soul", "Swing Down Sweet Chariot", "Lift Me Up Above The Shadows", and the title song, but has what I feel is the finest version of "He Bought My Soul At Calvary" ever recorded.
But it was recorded in 1961, before the Couriers became the well-known, acclaimed group they would be within just a year.
In fact, at that time(as was the case with too many quartets), times were tough for the Couriers, and if not for their own determination and trust in God's call on their lives, they might never have made that album.
It so happened that they discovered that a Harrisburg, PA area restaurant they frequented had a banquet room in its basement, equipped with an upright piano.
Seizing the moment, the dedicated quartet got permission to use that basement banquet facility to make a record. For in 1961, all a quartet needed was a piano to back them, and a certain amount of resourcefulness and creativity.
According to my good friend Neil Enloe, the quartet's lead singer and pianist at that time, the Couriers recorded their album right there, using blankets placed strategically on the piano to control its' sound for the purposes of noise control and recording.
The album was made, issued, and today remains one of the more sought after Couriers' recordings.
Today, so many gospel artists feel the pressure to record in the finest studios available, with the most well-known producer and engineers they can afford, and to use the finest in technological advances in existence(stacking machines, pitch correction equipment, etc.).
And if you can get that, more power to you. The better and more polished you can make your recordings, the better your chances they'll help your career grow and develop as quickly as possible.
But do you need that to make great gospel music?
Not necessarily. Consider the 1961 Couriers Quartet. They were just three years removed from Bible college, off to a bumpy start in the ultra competitive world of gospel quartet music at that time. They certainly weren't in the league of the Blackwood Brothers, Statesmen, or even the Chuck Wagon Gang at that time. They didn't have the backing nor the resources of those better known groups, nor the access(yet)to the finest recording facilities of the day. And there was no Wayne Haun or Lari Goss available to record them in the most state-of-the-art manner.
When the Couriers Quartet decided to record "I Believe", they were four dedicated, faithful young men singing their hearts out for God in the basement of a restaurant, accompanied only by an upright piano draped in blankets. Yet when you hear them sing "His Promise Is True" or "He Bought My Soul At Calvary", you feel that indefinable presence of a special spirit.
And really, to a lonely person listening to a record player in a dark room, do all the high-tech bells and whistles matter? Do they really enhance the spiritual experience of listening to the music?
You can understand every word the Couriers sing on "I Believe". And the arrangements are done in such a way that the emotive power of the music comes out in full force, unhindered by any artificial techniques.
And what more can music do than move the soul, and bless the ears of the hearer?
To one degree or another, we have become so accustomed to using all the gains of technology to achieve the most basic of objectives. And when it comes to making gospel music, we can easily drown out that still small voice if we're not careful.
I would argue that it takes greater musical skill to make classic gospel music from an imperfect facility and by covering a piano with a blanket and singing one's heart out than it does to commission the finest session players in the world and pressing buttons on high-tech machines to get similar results sound-wise, for practical purposes.
Now, mind you, within two years from the release of "I Believe", the Couriers used the most modern techniques and studios available along with an orchestra to make another classic gospel quartet album("Nothing...But The Gospel Truth"). And I treasure that album very much, too. But it took as much skill, musicianship, and faith to make "I Believe", and that album(and others like it)never fails to lift my spirits and bless me.
If you get the chance, listen to "I Believe", and see if it doesn't make you feel the same way.
Posted on Mar 10, 2008 - 11:09 PM | [0]
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