Get Aboard the Soul Train: October's Church of the Good Groove
Highlights from this month's GMIML-curated playlist for SoulandJazz.com guaranteed to lift your spirits.
Greetings!
That we are entering the last two months of 2024 is an astounding thing to me. There have been a lot of projects in production that will see the light of day next year and I can’t wait to share them with you. I’ve got an update on the New York Community Choir book coming soon, I promise.
There is typically a post here once a month about the Church of the Good Groove playlist which I curate for SoulandJazz.com. It’s fun for me because it’s an opportunity to share songs that I’ve loved for many years AND songs that I discover as I’m working on various articles and projects. The October playlist is a good balance of both of those things.
Here are a few highlights from October’s playlist which you can access by clicking here!
Stan Lee Choral Ensemble—Try It Today (featuring Lynda Smith a.k.a. Cheryl Lynn)—from Save Us Lord (1974)
This month’s playlist opens with a lot of energy—the first known recording of Cheryl Lynn, the voice of “Got to Be Real,” “Encore,” “If This World Were Mine (with Luther Vandross).
If you weren’t a part of the Los Angeles gospel scene in the 70s and 80s or a deep reader of album credits during that time, you might not be familiar with the essential work of Stan Lee. I became familiar with his work while researching the New York Community Choir book (there’s a connection!) and became a quick fan of this unsung gospel songwriter/arranger/musician. His recordings for Savoy in the early 1970s are now available for streaming and I can’t encourage you enough to become familiar with this innovative artist.
Dorothy Norwood—Get Aboard The Soul Train (7” Single)—1973
Dorothy Norwood’s crossover moment with GRC Records (whose roster at the time also included former Caravan Loleatta Holloway) is one of the most fascinating moments in her buoyant career. “Get Aboard the Soul Train,” the b-side to the R&B charting “There’s Got To Be Rain In Your Life,” could have stood well on its own as a follow-up to “Rain.” For whatever reason, it was relegated to a b-side, but I wanted to highlight it this month in all of it’s funkafied glory. To read more about this moment in Ms. Norwood’s career, click here.
Marion Williams—My Sweet Lord—Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go (1972)
While these days Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s foundational role in the architecture of rock and roll is being rightfully re-evaluated, Marion Williams place continues to be under-valued and overlooked. (Read more about that here)
Her 1972 album, Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go, took her further into the mainstream of American music and showcased both her ability to perform a range of styles and her interest in a broader lyrical message. The album was produced by Roberta Flack and Joel Dorn and she rendered material by Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Percy Mayfield, Thomas Dorsey and this gem by George Harrison, formerly of The Beatles.
(As an aside, last month I had the honor of moderating a conversation at the National Museum of African American Music about Ms. Williams’ work in conversation with her son, Robin Williams, Dr. Karen Moore (one of the producers of The Legendary Marion Williams documentary) and Milik Kashad of the Black Music Archive. Audio of our conversation is coming soon! Milik has also produced an incredible video essay about the connection between Ms. Williams’ vocal art and opera which I’ve posted below the photo.)
The Best of 2024
This weekend, I shared the first in the Best of 2024 series. If you missed it, here it is again! There will be more Best of 2024 posts coming in the next two months, so stay tuned!
You know how I love Church of the Good Groove! I went to the link. Saw the playlist, but good not find the play button!