5 Groups With Albums Turning 50!

A look at albums by the 2nd Chapter of Acts, B.C.& S., the New York Community Choir, Revelation and The John Hason Singers released in 1975.

The seventies were spilling over with groups! This edition of God’s Music Is My Life focuses on five groups with varied focuses, but they shared some commonalities—the influence of gospel music is one of them.

The New York Community Choir—Lift Him Up—Savoy Records

I am currently writing the last paragraphs of the final chapter of the New York Community Choir (!!!!!), so this album has been in my ears a lot today.

By 1975, NYCC had achieved commercial success beyond the confines of the gospel music field. Their collaborations with Nikki Giovanni had taken them out of churches and into performance halls and college campuses and introduced them to the mainstream. 1975’s Lift Him Up finds them in a transitional moment as choir director and co-founder Bennie Diggs stretches their sound, incorporating pop and adult contemporary influences, migrating away from the harder gospel that their prior albums touted.

While the bulk of Lift Him Up was written by Sim Wilson (from Bishop Billy Robinson’s Garden of Prayer COGIC), the album’s breakout single, “Where Do We Go From Here” (led by Arthur Freeman) was composed by choir member Vinson Cunningham, father of the New Yorker staff writer and critic and 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist who shares his name. “Where Do We Go From Here” would go on to be a hit for James Cleveland and the Triboro Mass Choir in 1980 on the Grammy-nominated In God’s Own Time album.

Listen to Lift Him Up here.

Revelation—Revelation—RSO Records

1975 was a productive year for Bennie Diggs. In addition to the New York Community Choir album, the choir’s offshoot group, Revelation, caught the attention of Robert Stigwood, manager of The Bee Gees, and founder of RSO Records. Revelation made history as the first Black group to sign with the label and Stigwood had big plans for them.

Originally a larger ensemble, Bennie Diggs slimmed the group down to himself, Arthur Freeman, Phillip Ballou and Arnold McCuller. They went into the Sigma Sound studio in Philadelphia with Allan Felder, J.R. Bailey, Jerome Gasper to create this jewel of a gospel-soul masterpiece that foretold albums like Amy Grant’s Unguarded, Bob Bailey’s self-titled 1988 release and Tata Vega’s Time’s So Right—albums by artists who happened to be Christians that were not necessarily singing exclusively about faith.

“You’re Sure To Find Me Waiting For You”, once again led by Arthur Freeman, is a prime example of the emotional terrain Revelation covered. Freeman expresses unabashed heartache in this lament of lost love in a way few male artists have dared.

Read more about NYCC and Revelation (and my forthcoming book) here.

The John Hason Singers—Self-Titled—Savoy Records

John Hason came to national prominence in the gospel field in the late 1960s by way of his association with the Institutional Radio Choir of Brooklyn as a songwriter and musician. He was simultaneously playing for Bishop William Morris O’Neil’s Christian Tabernacle in Harlem and the Isaac Douglas Singers (which included the aforementioned Bennie Diggs and Arthur Freeman), who emerged from O’Neil’s congregation.

The John Hason Singers is Hason’s only full-length release despite his prolific output as a songwriter. Utilizing singers from various churches in the New York Metropolitan area, this self-titled project is a unique glimpse into the musical mind of John Hason. The album’s most notable tune is “Thank You Makes Room,” which would later be recorded by James Cleveland, Father Charles Hayes and Bishop William Morris O’Neil’s Voices of Universal. However, the album’s most audacious tune is “Jesus,” an adaptation of The Spinners’ “Sadie.” I liken it to Cissy Houston’s arrangement of “Unchained Melody” in its elucidation of the gospel imagination—a limitless, boundariless thing that can claim any song and give it a second birth.

Listen to The John Hason Singers here.

B.C.& S.—We’re Gonna Serve Him—Savoy Records

This trio was composed of Brenda Waters, Carl Preacher, and Shirley Joiner, the founders of the Southeast Inspirational Choir. While their choral work was certainly dynamic, their output as a trio was equally so even if it didn’t receive the same degree of critical or commercial acclaim. The production on their three albums for Savoy Records was basic—piano, bass and drums. There were no bells and whistles. But the magic was in the simplicity. Anything more would have detracted from their dynamic harmony and exceptional arrangements.

We’re Gonna Serve Him is a combination of original compositions by all three group members and arrangements of hymns like “My Faith Looks Up To Thee” and “Amazing Grace.” It’s hard to imagine an album like this even being made today, so it’s a refreshing reminder of a time when albums were sometimes made because labels understood the importance of documenting groups like this because of their individuality, not necessarily their monetary possibilities.

Listen to We’re Gonna Serve Him here.

2nd Chapter of Acts—In The Volume of the Book—Myrrh Records

While dozens of groups sprang from The Jesus Movement, the 2nd Chapter of Acts were undoubtedly originals. With Annie Herring’s Laura Nyro-inspired compositions that didn’t always pay attention to conventional song structures, Matthew Ward’s Stevie Wonder-inspired vocal style, and the harmonic convergence of Matthew, Annie and sister Nelly Greisen, these three siblings quickly became stars in the developing terrain of Jesus Music with 1974’s With Footnotes.

This sophomore effort didn’t attempt to replicate their debut, but rather to expand beyond it. When the classical opening interlude, “Start Every Day Begins with a Smile,” begins, it’s hard to tell where the album might go—but the buoyant opening of the rocker, “Yahweh,” driven by a blistering guitar solo by Phil Keaggy, quickly tells the listener to expect the unexpected. The moods move from meditative (“Sometime Tells Me”) to whimsical (“The Grey Song”) to enthusiastic (“Hey Whatcha Say”), but never feel disconnected from each other.

In the Volume of the Book is aided by the music contributions of arrangers and musicians like Michael Omartian, Jay Graydon, David Hungate, and David Kemper, some of Los Angeles’ top tier players of the seventies and eighties. It certainly is one of the central albums that elevated the expectations of excellence in what would become contemporary Christian music.

Sadly, this album is not available in the digital music stores, but is, thankfully, on YouTube.

Listen to In the Volume of the Book here.