Golden Gate Gospel Train
Gabriel Blows His Horn
The Preacher and the Bear (That Ol' Time Religion)
Go Where I Send Thee
The Story of Job
Stand in the Test in Judgement
Travellin' Shoes
Take Your Burdens to God
To the Rock
When They Ring Them Golden Bells
My Lord Is Writing All the Time
Rock My Soul
Saints Go Marching Home
Noah
Ol' Man Mose
I Looked Down the Road and I Wondered
I'm a Pilgrim
Every Time I Feel the Spirit
My Walking Stick
Pick a Bale of Cotton +
He Never Said a Mumblin' World (The Crucifixion)
The Sun Didn't Shine on Calvary's Mountain
Anyhow
God's Gonna Cut 'Em Down
Swing Down, Chariot
No Restricted Signs Up in Heaven
Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego
Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho
Atom and Evil
Golden Gate Quartet with Leadbelly +
rec. 1937-46
This handy single disc houses
nearly a decade’s worth of recordings by one
of the most versatile of the Gospel groups
active in the 1930s and 1940s. The Golden
Gate Quartet – originally The Golden Gate
Jubilee Quartet on its foundation – outlasted
pretty much all competition and after varying
personnel changes was still active recently.
They were strongly influenced
by the secular Mills Brothers and evidence
for it is liberally to be heard throughout.
The Gospel songs were galvanized by instrumental
imitation and by a percussive dynamism that
derived from the virtuosic bass sections of
swing and big bands. The vocal imitations
conform closely to the kind of thing Red McKenzie
was doing as well – a kind of kazoo vibrancy
that stands now on the precipice of vogue-ish
commonplace. At the time of course it spelt
novelty.
The classic quartet of two
tenors, baritone and bass remained consistent.
It made a powerful and big sound, though one
capable of illuminating flexibility. When
They Ring Them Golden Bells for instance
is shot through with a solo that evokes the
baritone saxophone; its recording date of
1938 indicates the nature of the jazz context
for these moments of virtuoso panache, ones
it has to be noted that are affiliated with
great skill and logic to the strictly vocal
lines. The enthusiastic falsetto in Saints
Go Marching Home points to more popular
influences on the group. Their own influence
on successive generations of popular musicians
can be glimpsed from Noah in which
the seeds of Jail House Rock are startlingly
audible. In fact it’s known that Presley went
to hear them when he was stationed in the
American army in Germany.
Hats are doffed to the co-composer
of Ol’ Man Mose, Louis Armstrong, in
subtle vocal emulation. Leadbelly joins the
quartet for Pick a Bale of Cotton broadening
their range to include work song. Later on
in this run of sides we even hear guitar,
piano and percussion accompaniment. One of
their most well remembered titles, the protest
song No Restricted Signs Up in Heaven
is, for all its content, still couched in
the popular vernacular.
Well transferred and cogently
annotated this is a useful single disc collection
of a much-revered group.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
LIVING ERA CD AJA 5650 [77:16]
