‘…riches are found in the listening…’
GOSPEL GUITAR TREASURES
El McMeen
Piney Ridge Music (2018 release)
By Robert M. Marovich
Gospel Guitar Treasures is a meditative mix of familiar hymns, gospels, spirituals, and camp meeting songs masterfully rendered on solo acoustic guitar by superb picker Ellsworth “El” McMeen.
With sacred songs as his canvas, the talented McMeen, an ordained minister as well as musician, improvises, shifts rhythms, and otherwise offers subtle alterations of mood through unexpected chord changes while maintaining fidelity to the melodies. As such, the album anticipates his 2022 Piney Ridge Music issue with Ed Maina, Frets and Reeds: Gospel Style! (See review below)
McMeen covers plenty of ecumenical ground by drawing from a variety of Protestant and Catholic hymnbooks. Tracks range from the Celtic-flavored “Be Thou My Vision” and Baptist favorite “In the Garden” to the Pentecostal congregational song, “There Is Power in the Blood.” His simple arrangement of “Drifting Too Far from the Shore” has a Carter Family country flair. McMeen even performs spirituals such as “Were You There,” the spritely “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” and a delicate version of “Jacob’s Ladder.”
‘Were You There,’ El McMeen, from Gospel Guitar Treasures
‘In the Garden,’ El McMeen, from the DVD Meditation: Your Own Fight with Stress and featured on Gospel Guitar Treasures
A number of times on the album, McMeen cleverly combines two hymns into one seamless melodic presentation, as with “Let Us Break Bread Together” and “Kumbaya,” which share theme as well as melody. And unbeknownst to this writer prior to reviewing this album was that the melody of the Irish folk song “Star of the County Down” comes from a traditional hymn McMeen performs called “Kingsfold.” Since “Kingsfold” serves as the melodic foundation for “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” the listener gets a two-fer with this cut.
Gospel Guitar Treasures could just as easily be catalogued under New Age as Sacred because it is light and gentle, like a scented candle glowing in a darkened room. You can almost hear trees rustling in the wind and birds chirping in the background. There’s not much in the way of album notes here, but with 80 minutes of music, the riches are found in the listening.
***
‘…jazzing it softly and tenderly…’
FRETS AND REED: GOSPEL STYLE!
El McMeen & Ed Maina Piney Ridge Music (released 2022)
By Robert M. Marovich
Sometimes gospel jazz can be so imaginative that the melodies get buried beneath the lengthy solos and complex arrangements. But on Frets and Reeds: Gospel Style!, acclaimed musicians Ellsworth “El” McMeen and Ed Maina jazz the hymns, spirituals, and gospel songs ever so softly and tenderly without sacrificing the timeless beauty and charm of the melodies.
It’s a peaceful, easy album. McMeen picks acoustic guitar and Maina handles woodwinds, mostly saxophone but also clarinet and flute. The two take turns handling the melody and supporting with improvisation. There’s plenty of superb picking from McMeen, while Maina offers dexterous blowing, especially the wailing sax on ‘Power in the Blood,” which is the album’s main dose of Pentecostal power.
‘Just As I Am,’ El McMeen, from the DVD Guitar Artistry of El McMeen
Among the thirteen tracks are a sobering but beautiful rendition of the spiritual “Were You There.” Maina offers bluesy reeds on “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” almost in a first-line-style. I wish the two musicians had appended an up-tempo second-line segment to the conclusion of it.
“Once to Every Man and Nation,” a nineteenth-century hymn opening the first of the album’s three medleys, is one you don’t often hear these days. I could have listened to more of it had the duo extended it but instead they transition seamlessly to a rousing “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” There’s also a serene rendition of the southern gospel classic “Drifting Too Far from the Shore,” recorded by the likes of Roy Acuff, the Monroe Brothers, and Hank Williams.
Frets and Reeds: Gospel Style! is mellow, meditative music for a Sunday morning or prior to a weekday prayer service
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. The New York Times published his feature on the new CeCe Winans album, The Hymns, in its July 10, 2026 edition.
