The Essential Gospel Masters

Product Description:
The Stanley Brothers rank as one of the all-time greats of Bluegrass. Next to Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers occupy a special place as one of the most important groups in the history of the genre.
This collection is the first major overview of these classic Gospel recordings.

The Essential Gospel Masters,The Stanley Brothers,The Clinch Mountain Boys,Varese Records,Bluegrass,Bluegrass-Gospel,Close Harmony,Country,Pop,Traditional Bluegrass

Average customer rating: Generous anthology of prime gospel bluegrass

The Essential Gospel Masters The Stanley Brothers , and The Clinch Mountain Boys Manufacturer: Varese Sarabande ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Bluegrass | Country | Styles | Music Traditional | Bluegrass | Country | Styles | Music Country Gospel | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music Gospel | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music Similar Items: Foggy Mountain Gospel The Promised Land Long List of Heartaches Soldier Of The Cross ASIN: B000A2H8P8 Release Date: 2005-08-02

Tracks:

1. How Can We Thank Him For What He Has Done
2. White Dove
3. My Lords Gonna Set Me Free
4. Ill Meet You In Church Sunday Morning
5. He Said If I Be Lifted Up
6. Wings Of Angels
7. Are You Afraid To Die
8. Old Daniel Prayed
9. This Wicked Path Of Sin
10. Mothers Footsteps Guide Me On
11. When Jesus Beckons Me Home
12. Purple Robe
13. Ill Not Be A Stranger
14. Mother Left Me Her Bible
15. Rock Of Ages
16. I Saw The Light
17. What A Friend
18. Im Ready To Go

Album Description

The Stanley Brothers rank as one of the all-time greats of Bluegrass. Next to Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers occupy a special place as one of the most important groups in the history of the genre.
This collection is the first major overview of these classic Gospel recordings.

Customer Reviews:

Generous anthology of prime gospel bluegrass.......2005-08-16

Within bluegrass circles the Stanley Brothers have always been hailed as one of the genres leading and most unique proponents. Brother Carter is thought by many (including Bill Monroe) to have possessed the single greatest lead voice in the genre, and brother acts that followed (most notably The Louvins and Everlys), found Carter and Ralph's harmonies to be a nearly unreachable standard. In more recent years, with Bill Monroe having shuffled off this mortal coil and the popular phenomenon of "O Brother Where Art Thou," those outside the festival circuit have been drawn to Ralph Stanley as bluegrass elder statesmen, and with a little discovery the unparalleled brilliance, creativity and raw execution of the Stanley Brother's deep catalog of recordings.

This latest anthology cherry-picks 18 selections from a trio of gospel albums that the Stanleys waxed for King and Starday in '59 and '60: "Hymns & Sacred Songs" "For the Good People" and "Sacred Songs from the Hills." By 1959 the duo had been through three other labels (Rich-R-Tone, Columbia and Mercury) and was settling in for a fairly long stay at King. As they transformed their mountain string music into bluegrass throughout the '50s, they'd scattered songs of faith throughout their catalog, but upon landing at King they laid out full albums of sanctified material by William York, Bill Monroe, The Louvin Brothers, and the Stanleys themselves. The Clinch Mountain Boys lineups heard here includes the legendary Chubby Anthony, George Shuffler, and Curly Lambert. The true-stereo source tapes are crisp and provide a broad soundstage for the band's quartet singing. Bill Dahl's liner notes are informative, setting out these recordings place within the Stanleys' career, and providing rich song detail.

The Stanley Brothers are well represented in the CD era, with discs and box sets devoted to the various phases (and labels) of their career. Their work for King and Starday has been regularly anthologized, but Varese's 18-track collection fits perfectly between King's single disc 12-track anthologies and reissues, and their hefty 4-disc set "Early Starday-King Years 1958-1961." The latter, which includes all of the sides presented here, is a great buy for Stanley aficionados and bluegrass buffs, but those just wanting just a generous helping of the Stanley's bluegrass faith should start here. Those wanting an overview of their secular work for Starday and King should check out Varese's 2004 release, "The Essential Masters." [Review by redtunictroll@hotmail.com]

Average customer rating: Essential Gospel?

Essential Masters of Jazz Gospel Manufacturer: Proper UK Boxed Sets ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Jazz | Styles | Music Gospel | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music Gospel | Compilations | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music Christian & Gospel | Imports | Stores | Music ASIN: B00000IY64 Release Date: 1999-10-19

Customer Reviews:

Essential Gospel?.......2000-03-04

( Note: I'd only actually give highest rating 5 stars to a Tono-Bungay, Bannister, or Fire in the Kitchen recording. ) The track list for _Essential Gospel_ will surprise you: there are only 2 post-WWII selections here, and nothing after 1947. This is gospel before the gospel choir and the " church-wrecking " soloists ( it ends with an untheatrical [ read: tepid ] Mahalia Jackson hymn, though ) - you'll find no Bradley, May, Anderson, Williams, Love or Smith; and if you're hoping to sample the storming " soul " histrionics of Cheeks, Jeter or Brownlee, you won't find " hard gospel" here. And if you've forgotten,or if you never knew, how intimately gospel is/was entwined with early jazz and blues, personnel inclusions may surprise you as much as the above-mentioned omissions. Even if you think of them primarily as incredible blues guitarists, you won't be very startled to find Willie Johnson and Gary Davis here, but Scrapper Blackwell? And boogie-woogie pianist Sammy Price? Not to mention jazz pianist/clown Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong! Actually, all this is in fair order except for Armstrong. His novelty, gimmicky Decca sides, here represented by " Shadrack " ( complete with Decca's white-bread back-up vocals ), aren't even respected as jazz or pop; calling this Gospel ( Essential! ) is like calling Andrew Lloyd Webber or something Rock. You even get Ho-Ho's as if he's narrating some kind of Santa and Rudolph story. ( I think I find its inclusion very offensive, but maybe I wish I could wish myself into the personhood of some obviously French [ this CD is French-produced ] music-lover whose ideas of gospel, art, and love are so elastic that they embrace this sort of thing as not only listenable but somehow essential - do you think it would be interesting to be able to think like that? ) Aside from that unwarranted selection, _Essential Gospel_ gives a good picture of what early gospel was like - because it's French, perhaps we can get structuralist about it and subtitle it The Raw and the Cooked. Johnson and Davis are of course famous for their picked-scab rawness; in the celebratory Sanctified-style congregation singing of the Dranes and Beck tracks you'll get that ring-shout feeling, absolutely unprocessed; and the really unproduced, unglossy, serene sincerity of Dorsey and Phillips beats, for my money, all those gospel singer-people any day, anyway. On the cooked side, you get all those quartet tracks ( _possibly_ excluding Mitchell's Singers, considered " least professional ", most primitive of the era's a cappell-ists ), a very controlled Mahalia Jackson ( no vibrato, but no interest ), and a rather novelty-ish jazz-pop offering from Rosetta Tharpe ( you won't think of Broonzy during _this_ one ). 1920s and '30s Gospel - if I can break away from the binary - divided itself into basically three " spaces " : the studio and concert hall ( the quartet singers ); the street ( the " jackleg preachers " , here represented by Johnson and Phillips - traveling evangelists, both Texan ); and the church ( - the " singing preachers ", like this CD's Burnett and Blakey, sold more records than either of the other kinds, regularly more than contemporaneous blues " stars " - listen to these after one of those gospel comps that are strictly studio affairs; sounds like the real thing, yeah? )You might wish for, say, " Dark Was the Night.." instead of "...Nobody's Fault.." as the selection from bottleneck guitar giant Johnson, but this is still an amazing start for any gospel comp, a lot of which feature the likes of the comparatively frivolous Tharpe cover of this song.Just as anomalous a sound ( in the context of the usual gospel comp ) is Phillips's zither-like dolceola and disarming singing - they're vaguely wistful, and if you're used to satin, showy gospel, you'll find the directness no less impressive and refreshing than that of the Johnson track!The compilation's strong start continues with 2 singing-preacher tracks ; then the first of the jubilee tracks! This CD has six quartet selections, four of which are quite distinctly " jubilee " - upbeat, with close and smooth harmonies ( no crazy leads ), sophisticated arrangements, the sound of pop vocal groups ( like, anachronistically, the Hi-Lo's; or like the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots, obvious, acknowledged influences on the Golden Gates ). Well, you're going to have to hear this stuff some time, but by the third and fourth jubilee tracks, you'll probably be fidgetting. ( The comparatively " amateur vocal stylings " of Mitchell's Singers are heard to better effect on pieces like " Traveling Shoes " and " Here Am I ", not included here, where you get some nice falsetto, not a major feature of 'thirties quartet, but an ever-popular draw with the likes of me . ) The Southern Sons track hints, with Langford's falsetto and oily register-switching, of what is to come, but to modern sensibilities ( especially in a " religious " context ) the unintentionally comicbarbershop bass of Givens is off-putting, as are the commercial-polish " imitations " of the Gates, whose repertoire does include " Sweet Adeline ".The Davis track ( in the stronger first half of the CD ) is as interesting for the light it sheds on blues guitar ( you need to hear Davis if you're interested in Blind Boy Fuller and Brownie McGhee ) as its illumination of the street-evangelist scene. ( I read somewhere he can get into those challenging positions because his left wrist broke and set in an unusual way ! )Also in this first half is the ragtime piano of Dranes and her singers. This barrelhouse piano was apparently a regularfeature of Church of God inChrist music-making.More awesome still is Elder Beck's Lewis-like rollicking piano improvisation on my favorite _Essential Gospel_ track ( along with the Dorsey-Blackwell ). He went on to blow an Armstrong-comparable ( according to Stearns ) trumpet and in the 1950s made these amazingly relaxed, the vocals so laid-back it's so comical, recordings like " When ". Quite, quite infectious ( " Memphis Flu " _and_ " When " ).

Average customer rating:

The Essential Masters The Stanley Brothers Manufacturer: Varese Sarabande ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Bluegrass | Country | Styles | Music Traditional | Bluegrass | Country | Styles | Music Country Gospel | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music Gospel | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music ASIN: B0006213L2 Release Date: 2004-10-12

Tracks:

1. How Mountain Girls Can Love
2. Shes More To Be Pitied
3. Think Of What Youve Done
4. Mothers Footsteps Guide Me On
5. Im A Man Of Constant Sorrow
6. Mountain Dew
7. How Far To Little Rock
8. Let Me Love You One More Time
9. Daybreak In Dixie
10. Lovers Quarrel
11. Id Worship You
12. Fast Express
13. (Dear Girl) Can You Forgive
14. Little Birdie
15. Stone Walls And Steel Bars
16. Dont Cheat In Our Home Town
17. Oh, Death
18. Rollin On Rubber Wheels

Album Description

This collection features the best of Ralph and Carter Stanley's fantastic King and Starday masters from the late 50s and early 60s.

Music Album:

1. The Farrington Sessions
2. The Legendary Eddy Arnold [Import]
3. The Original [Import]
4. The Pine Hill Haints Meet Clampitt, Gaddis & Buck
5. The Pressure Is On
6. The Rest of the Dream
7. Trains Have No Names
8. Traveling Singing Man
9. Very Best Of
10. Very Best of: 16 Great Songs [Import]

Music Album