PARCHMAN PRISON PRAYER – ANOTHER MISSISSIPPI SUNDAY MORNING

Various Artists

Glitterbeat Records

By Bob Marovich

Given the unexpected success of, and critical acclaim for, the 2023 release Parchman Prison Prayer–Some Mississippi Sunday Morning, GRAMMY Award-winning producer and author Ian Brennan flew back to the Mississippi penitentiary to do a second album, Parchman Prison Prayer–Another Mississippi Sunday Morning.

Twelve men, ranging in age from 23 to 74, several serving life sentences, participated in the second album, which was captured over the course of a few hours, and without any additional takes or overdubs. As with the first volume, any and all artist proceeds from this album will benefit the prison’s Chaplain program.

‘Open the Floodgates of Heaven.’ Now sixty-seven years old, singer J. Hemphill has been serving a Life sentence since his early-twenties. From the album, Parchman Prison Prayer–Another Mississippi Sunday Morning

The history of recording inmates goes back to the 1930s and the work of Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress. Cut to June 1953, when Sam Phillips of Sun Records scored one of his label’s first hits when he recorded The Prisonaires, a vocal group from the Tennessee State Prison, performing “Just Walking in the Rain,” a tune penned by the group’s lead singer Johnny Bragg and fellow inmate Robert Riley. The single sold an astonishing 250,000 copies for the struggling independent label, even with stiff competition from a cover version by Johnny Ray that sold more than a million copies. Perhaps not to be outdone, Mercury Records also mined a single in November 1953 from another vocal quartet out of Tennessee State Prison, a group called the Canaan Jubilee Singers. One difference between the Sun and Mercury singles and Brennan’s projects is that Parchman Prison Prayer was recorded inside the prison, not in a recording studio.

‘Po’ Child,’ C. Jackson. From the album, Parchman Prison Prayer–Another Mississippi Sunday Morning

It ain’t no harm to moan, the saying goes, and the six-man Parchman Prison Choir’s wordless “Parchman Prison Blues,” which closed the live recording session but opens the album, evokes the anguish of Blind Willie Johnson’s similarly wordless 1927 recording of “Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground.” Their moaning describes the despair of imprisonment better than any lyrics.

Other notable tracks include J. Hemphill’s passionate vocal on “Open the Floodgates of Heaven.” On “Grace Will Lead Me On,” M. Palmer’s testimony on learning about grace from his parents and grandparents is as simple and affecting as a sermon from a country preacher. M. Kyles’ voice is compelling on “I Shall Not Want,” an unaccompanied musical representation of the 23rd Psalm, and the small group effort on “God is Keeping Me” has the informality of congregational singing.

In addition to the more traditional tunes are J. Robinson and L. Stevenson’s beatbox-accompanied rap called “MC Hammer.” To solitary drumbeats, D. Justice’s whispered version of Tamela Mann’s hit “Take Me to the King” is the most chilling version of the song you are ever likely to hear. And truer words were never uttered than C. Jackson’s comments on “Po’ Child:” “And they don’t have to whip us anymore or hang us from trees /They just whip us with a prison cell and hang us for sixty years….”

‘I Shall Not Want,’ M. Kyles, From the album, Parchman Prison Prayer–Another Mississippi Sunday Morning

If the opening “Parchman Prison Blues” is joyless, the concluding selection, “Jesus Will Never Say No” is joyful. Led by M. Palmer, the song is the most radio friendly of the dozen selections.

Clocking in at 30 minutes, Parchman Prison Prayer–Another Mississippi Sunday Morning is short but impactful. Though it is a sonic expression of the pathos of prison, and it succeeds in this, J. Hemphill puts it all in perspective in his “Living Testimony” when he sings, “I could have been dead and gone /I am a living testimony, and I thank the Lord I’m still alive.” Often the most effective form of resistance is simply staying alive.

Picks: “Jesus Will Never Say No,” “Open the Floodgates of Heaven”

***

Gospel Diaries Golden Memories (Live)

Various Artists


Gospel Diaries (released October 7, 2024)

Review by Bob Marovich

 Gospel Diaries Golden Memories is a series of musical moments captured by historian Eric Maurice Clark during his visits with vocalists and musicians, most of whom have direct links to gospel’s earliest days, especially in Chicago, the genre’s birthplace city. Not captured in a studio but in churches and private homes, the 25 selections sound like field recordings, complete with background chatter, hallelujahs, testimonies, and other exhortations. As a whole the project feels like an all-night sing, a combination of the communal joy of a Gaither Homecoming and the informality of the Million Dollar Quartet, with each listener an eavesdropper on the session.

‘Where is Your Faith in God,’ James Herndon, from Gospel Diaries Golden Memories

‘It Pays to Serve Jesus,’ Pastor DeAndre Patterson of Chicago’s Christian Tabernacle Church, from Gospel Diaries Golden Memories

The songs, like the artists who perform them, hail from the traditional gospel era. The playlist includes selections from two veteran gospel singers who passed away recently, Rodessa Barrett Porter and Vernon Oliver Price. Other participating artists include Elsa Harris, Zella Jackson Price, Richard Jackson, Cliff Dubose, Dello Thedford, Leanne Faine (she sings her trademark song, “Holy Ghost”), and Cleo Kennedy. Loretta Oliver sounds as good as ever on “Something About God’s Grace.” Clark’s grandfather, Bishop Jesse McDowell, contributes a couple of gospels at the beginning and the end of the project. Among the younger generation in the mix are Calvin Bridges (he sings his composition “I Can Go to God in Prayer” with Vernon Oliver Price), Pastor DeAndre Patterson, Minister Tim White, and Bishop Dan Willis and Yvonne Ruff.

‘Holy Ghost,’ Leanne Faine and Tim White, from Gospel Diaries Golden Memories

James Herndon offers the collection’s standout moments. He accompanies himself on piano on several selections, including “Where Is Your Faith in God” and “The Angels Keep Watching” (aka “Angels Watching Over Me”). Herndon proves he could–and ought to–record an entire album of traditional selections, something along the lines of what Steven Dolins’ The Sirens label has done for veteran gospel singers and keyboardists in the past couple of decades.

Given the on-the-spot nature of the recordings, the organ and piano come through loud and clear, but many of the vocalists could have benefited from better microphone placing. Exceptions are Pastor DeAndre Patterson of Chicago’s Christian Tabernacle Church, whose voice is so strong on “It Pays to Serve Jesus” that he nearly blows out the VU meter; and the effervescent Zella Jackson Price on the chestnut “I Don’t Know About Tomorrow.”

‘I Don’t Know About Tomorrow,’ Zella Jackson Price and Dello Thedford, from Gospel Diaries Golden Memories

Nevertheless, each of the singers and musicians demonstrates that a good Zion song, like a good Zion song vocalist, neither goes out of style nor loses its ability to touch the heart.

Pick: “The Angels Keep Watching”

Chicago-based Bob Marovich launched The Journal of Gospel Music on the tenth anniversary of its predecessor website, The Black Gospel Blog, which he founded July 28, 2004, as the first blog to cover African American gospel music. He is a gospel music historian, author and radio host.  Since 2001 he has produced “Gospel Memories,” a show featuring classic gospel, spiritual and jubilee music, as well as interviews with gospel legends. It airs Saturday mornings on Chicago’s WLUW-FM and throughout the week on several Internet and low-power FM radio stations throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Bob’s work has been published in the Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music (Routledge 2005), Encyclopedia of African American Music (Greenwood Publishing 2010), and in the ARSC Journal of the Association of Recorded Sound Collections.