A Gene Barge production from 1967, with a winning mixture of rocking gospel funk and spiritualized ballads. A nice version of Buddy Miles’ We Got To Live Together.

Gospel melts into Soul in this dazzling collection of sides originally released by the Chess subsidiary label Checker.
Devised by the same team supporting the likes of Muddy Waters and Etta James at Chess, the vintage of Checker Gospel celebrated here is distinguished by its expertly raw, rugged, live feel — thumping bass and pounding drums, bluesy guitar and horns — and its keen engagement with contemporary realities and politics, with an underlying, unwavering commitment to the Civil Rights movement. Not forgetting its sheer, startling, richly diverse soulfulness.
Key architects of the Chicago Sound and Motown are amongst the scores of contributors: Charles Stepney, Gene Barge, Eddie Kendricks, and Leonard Caston Jr. are in the house… Morris Jennings, drummer on Curtis’ Superfly and Terry Callier’s What Color Is Love… Louis Satterfield from The Pharaohs and Earth Wind & Fire… Ramsey Lewis’ guitarist Byron Gregory… Phil Upchurch… Laura Lee…
Producer Monk Higgins joined Checker in 1967, bringing his experience of R&B and Gospel hit-making for the labels One-derful and Satellite, together with a loyal cohort of musicians. A protege of Willie Dixon, engineer Malcolm Chisholm set up the Ter Mar studio as if preparing for a live gig, carefully teasing measures of bleed into the microphones. With Ralph Bass from King Records running A&R, they knew exactly what they were after. ‘I’m using horns and an R&B sound in gospel recordings,’ said Bass. ‘We have no charts. All the musicians are given the chord changes. I want the cats to think when we’re cutting. I want spontaneity, and that’s what we’re getting.’ And: ‘There is more to gospel than just finding solace in the church. This follows the same message of Martin King, who was fighting for a new way of life. Kids are tired of hearing Jesus Give Us Help. They want a positive message.’
Focussed on the late sixties and early seventies, the twenty-five recordings here are all killer no filler, but try these four, random entry points: the heavy funk ostinato of the Violinaires’ Groovin’ With Jesus, working itself up into a post-James-Brown brass frenzy, sure to knock your socks off; Cleo Jackson Randle’s title track, for those who like their Gospel straight-up and hard-core; Eddie Kendricks’ achingly timely choral call-to-arms, Stand Up America, Don’t Be Afraid; the East St Louis Gospelettes’ heart-stopping, fathoms-deep rendition of Bobby Bland’s I’ll Take Care Of You.
A beautiful gatefold sleeve; a full-colour booklet with excellent notes by Robert Marovich; top-notch sound. Another knockout selection by Greg Belson and David Hill.
A shoo-in for soul compilation of the year.

Hard-rocking, rawly soulful gospel.
The highly-prized original LP was issued by Hoyt Sullivan on his HSE label out of South Carolina and then Nashville.
Nuff highlights but Hold Out is utterly devastating and unmissable (the band almost nodding out with tribulation).
Hotly recommended.

‘Former Mind & Matter bandmates James ‘Jimmy Jam’ Harris and Michael Dixon teamed up for this 1978 gospel-boogie banger, originally on the private Mad label.’

Riding in resplendently on the cassock tails of The Gospel According To Budgie mixtapes and The Good Books (with Alchemist): still deeper, giddier blends of nineties gospel and nu bounce. Back in.

Outstanding, laid-back gospel from 1979 — possessed by the sublimity of Bobby Womack — originally issued on its own S&K label by the Sanders family, from the Witness Of Jesus Christ church in Fresno, California.
The opener is the killer shit; knockout soul music about dying. We could listen to it for days on end.

Gospel soul classic from 1971, with Gene Barge, Phil Upchurch and Richard Evans, besides the rapturous Youth For Christ Choir. Good enough for Donny Hathaway, good enough for us.

Superb, mid-eighties, soulful gospel, with popping bass and amazing singing; obscure but musically right up there with the Winans, DJ Rogers, Vanessa Bell Armstrong and co, from the same bountiful vintage.

Originally out on the TK imprint Gospel Roots in 1978. We included the curtain-raiser Elijah Rock on our overview of the label, Christians Catch Hell.
Outstanding.

Digging yet deeper and more devastatingly in the gospel bins of the Black Atlantic, HGZII has its genesis in work undertaken for Kanye West and the Sunday Service in Wyoming, before enfleshment and fine-tuning back at home in the City of Angels.