Community spirit
Luaka Bop’s excellent series finds socially conscious, seriously funky obscure gems of ’70s gospel.
Various ★★★★★ The Time For Peace Is Now
LUAKA BOP. CD/DL THE FIRST collection in Luaka Bop’s World Spirituality Classics series focused on the late Alice Coltrane’s work, already an esteemed catalogue at cult level. This second volume delves far deeper into obscurity. The Time For Peace Is Now features 14 tracks, mostly from the 1970s, by 13 gospel acts, mostly from Southern US states, and they make for a fascinating, uplifting voyage of discovery.
Gospel had been a prime influence on R&B, rock’n’roll, soul and jazz from the ’50s onwards. By the ’70s, the traffic was flowing in the opposite direction – now, gospel was being written, arranged, performed and produced in the era’s soul style, and as well as touching on beliefs, the subject matter also addressed the black community’s everyday experiences and needs, and its social and political aspirations. Indeed, the second track here, Reverend Harvey Gates’s bluesier gospel song It’s Hard To Live In This Old World, might have been written by Ben Harper for Mavis Staples’ recent We Get By. In fact, recorded for the Acquarian label, it was issued as the B-side to Price Of Love, also included here.
Driven from the start by a commanding bass line, The Little Shadows’ Time For Peace from 1976 is a deceptively insistent overture to the LP’s hidden treasures as it powers through almost five minutes of increasing vocal and rhythmic intricacy around Annie Caldwell’s light-toned lead. Throughout there are clear echoes of Philly soul – the melody and disco kick to The Floyd Family Singers’ 1980 release That’s A Sign Of The Times; The Triumphs’ We Don’t Love Enough, its power and confidence reminiscent of a late ’60s Gamble & Huff production.
Other revelations on this fascinating collection include Willie Scott, as he hits a perfect Southern soul groove in 1979’s Keep Your Faith To The Sky; The William Singers’ Don’t Give Up (1973), striding on with the drama and power of Stax’s Rance Allen Group; The Mighty Reverlaires’ Sunshine After Every Rain leaning heavily on House Of The Rising Sun’s melody. But no prizes for guessing who The Staples Jr Singers style themselves after.
Among numerous unexpected delights and highlights, Condition The World Is In hypnotises via The Religious Souls’ falsetto repetition of the title behind Reginald Kingcannon’s lead, and The Gospel I.Q’s’ Peace In The Land feels like a ’70s Stax or Atlantic track until an uptempo vocal harmony bursts right out of The Impressions’ songbook. Brilliant.
“We are in need of men who will be men today,” sings James Bynum in We Are In Need, a ballad demanding responsible role models, among other things, not macho clods. Like almost all of these excellent, unexpected tracks, its music and messages still resonate today.