Various Artists – Fire in My Bones

Despite growing up in the dear old Southland, I’ve never been a huge fan of old gospel music. Much of the what I encountered as a youth felt dull, passionless, and, forgive me, fake. But after hearing the 2009 collection, Fire in My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007, I think I just may have been going to the wrong churches. The music on Fire in My Bones is vibrant, inspired, and full of holy fire. The collection, produced by Mike McGonigal for Tompkins Square, is a sprawling work that cannot be considered anything but essential for fans of black gospel music.

Fire in My Bones has a wide variety of music but is focused primarily on post-WWII African-American gospel music. And the real victory of the collection is that most of the songs included here have never been heard by more than a few hundred people. McGonigal collected many of them from old 78s at recording studios, radio stations, and churches. Because they were locally recorded, most of these have never been widely distributed until now. It’s worth the price of the record just to hear how this gospel music incorporated the popular music of the times. Were these gospel tunes influenced by the blues, folk, rock ’n’ roll and soul of the day? Was it the other way around? Perhaps it’s a little bit of both.

Consider the 1956 cut, “Rock and Roll Sermon,” which features Elder Beck decrying the morals of rock music while his guitar accompanist lays down some white hot guitar riffs that were probably as dirty and rowdy as any of the early rock and roll of that era. And unlike much of the gospel music out there, these are some of the most creative Christian songs I’ve ever heard. The Amazing Farmer Singers of Chicago provide one of the most memorable examples with “I’ve Got a Telephone in My Bosom,” which provides a unique and intriguing description of the believer’s connection to God.

If there’s one downside to this collection, it’s that the quality is not entirely consistent. With eighty songs, there are definitely degrees of song and recording quality. A few of the songs are merely mediocre, but the majority of them are easily worth your time. Another issue (which may be positive or negative, depending on your perspective) is that the collection is just massive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have a large amount of music and even if the quality is not entirely consistent, most of the material here is terrific. But this three-disc set contains almost four hours of fiery gospel music which means, for most people, it must be listened to in segments.

In a particularly bold move, McGonigal has arranged these songs thematically, not chronologically and this makes the records a fun, somewhat messy listen. Songs from the 40s, 70s, and 2000s are sequenced together despite their disparate musical styles. This only adds to the notion that it is the creed and spirit of a song and not its musical genre that places it in the realm of gospel music. Fire in My Bones was one of the most inspired and memorable records released in 2009 and, regardless of your religious views, it may even be enough to redeem a previously neglected genre of music.

Tagged as: gospel, soul

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