Tag: Memphis Gospel

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Music Music Blog

The Sacred Soul Renaissance, Live and Onscreen

Elizabeth King and Elder Jack Ward (photo courtesy Crosstown Arts)

For fans of old school gospel, one particular show scheduled for tonight, December 3rd — An Evening of Sacred Soul with Elizabeth King and Elder Jack Ward — will feel like the Great Awakening, as the Bible & Tire Recording Co. presents an evening loaded with unique elements to bring earthy, down-home gospel to life like never before. It all stems from several years’ worth of work and planning by Bruce Watson, fellow sanctified soul enthusiast (and erstwhile Royal Pendleton) Mike Hurtt, and the once and future DJ and visionary of Memphis gospel, Pastor Juan D. Shipp.

“I always wanted to do a gospel thing,” says Watson. “All the modern gospel stuff that I’ve heard lately is pretty horrid. One of my jobs is collecting old masters and buying old labels and stuff, and that gospel stuff from the ’60s and ’70s was always just so amazing, and I just didn’t hear that in modern gospel music. So basically I wanted to create a Memphis based label that concentrated on recording gospel music and try and make it sound like it was recorded in the ’60s and ’70s. And also reissue stuff.” That became Bible & Tire Recording Co. in 2019.

As Watson explains, “I contacted Pastor Shipp and said, ‘Look, I’m starting this gospel label and I would love to buy the rights to the D-Vine Spirituals label and kick start this new label.’ And suddenly I was working with the Barnes Brothers, with the Elizabeth King release and the box set for the D-Vine Spirituals stuff, which is absolutely amazing. So that’s how it all came together.”

Tonight will be an apotheosis of sorts for all of these projects, with an exclusive showing of a documentary, The D-Vine Spirituals Story, followed by performances by Elizabeth King and Elder Jack Ward, supported by the Sacred Soul Sound Section. A meet-and-greet/record signing with the artists will be held at Memphis Listening Lab at 6 p.m. prior to the show.

The documentary promises to be well researched, as extensive liner notes for Bible & Tire’s D-Vine Spirituals box set were penned by author Hurtt, perhaps best known for the book he co-wrote with Billy Miller, Mind Over Matter: The Myths and Mysteries of Detroit’s Fortune Records.

As Watson notes, Hurtt was integral to the process of unearthing the D-Vine Spirituals catalog. “Mike’s really the one who saved these recordings. He reached out to Pastor Shipp and asked, ‘What’s the story?’ So Mike and Pastor Shipp drove down to Southhaven and got all the tapes, and stored them all in Scott Bomar’s for the longest time. And every time I’d go over to Bomar’s, I walked past that closet filled with those tapes. And I’d say, ‘Hey Scott, you’re not gonna do anything with those tapes?’ Then he called and said, ‘I’m not gonna do anything with those tapes.’ Finally he called and said, ‘Man, are you gonna come get these tapes?’ And I was like, ‘Of course I will!’ But if Mike Hurtt hadn’t taken the initiative and gotten the tapes with Pastor Shipp, none of this would have happened, as far as D-Vine Spirituals. We transferred 150 master tapes, and they were all in pretty good shape.”

Now, thanks to Bible & Tire, not only are the gems of the ’70s gospel label’s catalog being re-released, artists from that era like Elizabeth King and Elder Jack Ward are finding new audiences and releasing new albums. It will all be on display tonight, both live and onscreen, at the Crosstown Theater.

An Evening of Sacred Soul with Elizabeth King & Elder Jack Ward
Friday, December 3rd, 7 p.m., Crosstown Theater

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Music Music Blog

In Memoriam, Reverend John Wilkins: A Life Well Lived

After a prolonged struggle with COVID-19 and its aftereffects, the Reverend John Wilkins, renowned singer, songwriter and player of gospel blues, passed away on Tuesday, October 6th. He was 76. This comes as a double blow to those who saw hope in Wilkins’ seemingly successful struggle with the coronavirus, as detailed in Chris McCoy’s recent profile of survivors.

Born and raised in Memphis, Wilkins also had deep ties to Mississippi, having served as pastor at Hunter’s Chapel in Como since 1985. By then he had already contributed a lifetime of blues guitar playing, including a stellar performance on O.V. Wright’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Cry.” But more than a dozen years ago, he was moved to return to music, embracing a blend of gospel and blues that won him many fans internationally. (Read The Memphis Flyer’s 2019 overview of Wilkins’ life here). Wilkins came to embrace playing music both sacred and profane, saying, “People got to realize I listen to blues. That ain’t gonna send me to hell — the way I live is what’s gonna send me to hell.”
Alex Greene

Rev. John Wilkins and Stewart Copeland

Wilkins’ services in Como, and an interview with drummer and composer Stewart Copeland, were recently featured in the BBC series, Stewart Copeland’s Adventures in Music.

Traveling with him through most of his tours was friend, manager and sometime bass player Amos Harvey, who recalled Tuesday’s events. “I was actually on my way to visit him yesterday morning, and his daughter Tangela called me and said ‘Dad’s taken a turn for the worse.’ A little while later he passed away. So I was up there for a long time at the hospital and then just drove around Memphis kinda aimlessly, processing it a little bit. It was just a long, hard day.”

Because of COVID-19, Harvey noted, processing Wilkins’ death is all the more difficult. “I don’t want to be bitter while remembering Rev. Wilkins,” said Harvey, “but he absolutely would still be here today had it not been for the lack of leadership in this country. The President knew about it in February! He should have done the mask mandate and the shutdown a month and half early, and it would have lessened the severity of the virus. And hundreds of thousands of people would not be ill or dead. It’s directly related. That’s the truth.”

Harvey went on to describe Wilkins’ long struggle of dealing with COVID’s fallout. “He’d been doing dialysis three times a week ever since he got out of the hospital four months ago. The aftereffects of ‘beating Covid’ finally wore him out. He fought like hell for six months and these aftereffects took him down.

Reverend John Wilkins

“He had so much more life to him. He was a strapping 76-year-old before this happened. Able to travel all over the world. Of course there were festivals booked for this year that were canceled and rescheduled for next year, but more bookings came throughout these past six months for European shows. He loved traveling overseas, and he loved taking his daughters overseas. He loved playing music, but he loved doing it with his family even more.”

Daughters,Tangela Longstreet, Joyce Jones and Tawana Cunningham, his sole surviving family members, recorded with Wilkins as well, figuring prominently on his latest album, Trouble, released last month by Goner Records (and recently profiled in The Memphis Flyer).

“He wanted to feature them,” Harvey said. “And I think we did a good job, and that feels good, that we got to put this record out to the world, with Goner and his hometown, and they love and respect him so much. I’d send him and his daughters reviews as they were coming out, and he would be real happy. I would play him clips from old shows and that would really make him light up and hope for the better.”

There are no plans at present for memorial services, but Harvey noted that there will be on-air and online remembrances. “The Deep Blues Festival in Clarksdale had already planned to have a tribute to him, even before he passed away, because he usually closed out the festival on Sundays. Now, since it’s live-streamed, I want to compile a lot of different videos of him playing gigs and preaching. So that will be an online tribute, broadcast through the Deep Blues Festival on October 18th. And DJ Swamp Boogie, who’s always been a big supporter, is gonna do a tribute on his show, Thursday, October 15th, on WWOZ.”

In the meantime, Wilkins’ family, congregation, and many fans are struggling to adjust. As Harvey says, “Not only did he touch the crowds he played for, but for us playing with him, it made your fricking day. That’s why you play music, is to feel like you feel when you’re playing with him. And we were lucky to have Wallace [Lester] and Kevin [Cubbins], who’ve been with us almost the entire time. None of us were making a living off it, but that didn’t matter. And everybody else that played with him felt it was an honor to play with him. He would immediately welcome new players into the band.”

Reflecting for a moment, Harvey said, “It’s hard to know we’re not gonna go onstage and make those memories and feelings happen again, you know?”

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Music Record Reviews

The Lost Worlds of JCR Records: Bible & Tire Rescues ’70s Gospel Gems

It’s fitting, given that September is Gospel Music Heritage Month, that today marks the release of another stellar album from Bible & Tire Recording Co. The imprint, which debuted last year, expresses the aesthetic of Fat Possum’s and Big Legal Mess’ Bruce Watson, who sums it up like this: “Deep soul gospel music is soul music without the sex. The message is different, but the spirit is the same. I don’t hear that in modern gospel music. I wanted to start a Memphis-based record label that specializes in finding these artists and presenting gospel in the spirit and sound of the past.”

While that doesn’t mean that Bible & Tire releases only vintage recordings, as evidenced by last year’s debut album by The Sensational Barnes Brothers, it does mean that the label is open to old recordings right out of the gate. The old school defines its mission, as it promotes an earthy gospel sound that predates synthesizers, drum machines, and shimmering production values.

It’s ironic, then, that higher production values were one motivation behind the two labels created by the pastor and WDIA and KWAM radio DJ Juan D. Shipp in 1972: D-Vine Spirituals and JCR.  At that time, more advanced recording techniques didn’t yet involve the synthetic sheen that is now so common; rather, they favored a greater clarity and presence in the tones that bands created naturally. Bible & Tire has already released the period recordings of Elizabeth King & the Gospel Souls, originally on D-Vine Spirituals. Now we can hear tracks from the sister label, JCR, with today’s release, The Last Shall Be First: The JCR Records Story, Volume One.

As musician and music historian Michael Hurtt writes in his liner notes, Shipp was convinced that “the local artists deserve a better sound.” And yet, though he shone the spotlight on many local gospel groups, some didn’t have “the texture that I want for it to be on D-Vine.” These groups with a little more raw grit were released on JCR. And this latest album presents the cream of that crop.

Given that African-American churches have long been crucibles for the musical talent of Memphis, as explored last December in the Memphis Flyer, these gospel groups are an integral part of soul music’s story. And perusing this album offers up a catalog of structures, melodies, and harmonies that are deep in the DNA of soul. The Silver Wings’ “Call on Him,” for example, seems to be a second cousin to the Stax classic “634-5789.”

Other genres are heard as well, such as the blues boogie of “Father Guide Me, Teach Me” by the Pilgrimairs, or “You Can’t Hurry God” by the Johnson Sisters, both direct ancestors of the gospel blues of Rev. John Wilkins. But beyond tracing influences historically, these tracks offer a master course in guitar and keyboard tones, grooves, and vocal harmonies that are compelling in their own right. Though they may be superbly recorded by 1972 standards, they are also played with great fervor. Indeed, the electricity of these performances will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, no matter how lousy your speakers may be. That sound is something worth saving. And there’s every indication that Bible & Tire will keep releasing more of these saved sounds and saved souls for a long time coming.