"How Can I Keep From Singing" Vol. 2 - Early American Religious Music & Song / Classic Recordings from the 1920s and 30

"Hallelujah, Yazoo has now tapped the rich history of early religious singing...exuberant!" - New York Daily News 
"An amazing cross section of religious music styles." - Victory Review
"Bursts with unaffected passion and energy." - Riverfront Times
A powerful and deeply moving overview of Early American religious music and song from both the white and black communities. Highlighted here are the fascinating panorama of American religious music styles from archaic fundamentalist modal hymns, to gospel quartets, to Pentecostal bands, to songsters accompanying themselves on guitars, banjoes, and fiddles, to snippets of church services including some preaching, and much, much more. These albums provide an expansive overview of early American religious music.As with its predecessor, How Can I Keep from Singing, Vol.2: Early American Religious Music and Song combines a mere handful of well-known performers from the golden age of American Folk Music with a number of more mysterious names. In the place of obvious choices like Rev. Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson, for example, we find Shands Superior Jubilee Singers and Ridgel's Fountain Citians. After all, both Davis and Johnson have full-length Yazoo collections devoted to their music. What How Can I Keep from Singing does so well then, is to convey the scope of religious song (on record) during the 1920s and '30s. Placing bluesman Sam Collins' gorgeous "I Want to Be Like Jesus in My Heart" between the sacred harp singers of "Weeping Mary" and Morris Family's "He Rose Unknown" proves how much apparently disparate musicians had in common, even if the sound of their music seemed so far apart. Even secular performers join in. Sacred music certainly wasn't prominent in the repertoire of Cliff Carlisle, but that hardly concern's Yazoo. The guitarist and his quartet give a spirited reading of the popular "Shine on Me." The sound of the Golden Jubilee Quartet on "Job" seems to predate everything from the sacred style adopted by bluegrass singers in the '40s to the rockabilly panache of the '50s. Elsewhere, Washington Philips finds comfort on "Jesus Is My Friend," Shands Superior Jubilee Singers describe appropriate attire for heaven on "Silver Slippers" and the genteel voices of the Copperhill Male Quartet sound chilling delivering the title of "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood." In bringing together these artists, Yazoo creates a religious community on How Can I Keep from Singing. Though the musicians themselves might not have recognized it as such, on record it seems very real indeed. (Allmusic)

INFO

http://www.yazoorecords.com/2021.htm

http://www.allmusic.com/album/how-can-i-keep-from-singing-vol-2-mw0000613440

trax:

1. What Shall Our Answer Be - George Long 2. I've Got a Home In Beulah Land - Brothers Wright & Williams 3. Rock of Ages - Blind Willie Davis 4. Weeping Mary Roswell - Sacred Harp Quartette 5. I Want To Be Like Jesus In My Heart - Sam Collins 6. He Rose Unknown - Morris Gospel Family 7. Will My Mother Know Me There - L.V. Jones 8. Memphis Flu - Elder Curry And Congregation 9. Jesus Is My Friend - Washington Phillips 10. Job Golden Gate - Jubilee Quartet 11. Hallelujah To The Lamb - Ridgel's Fountain Citians 12. There is A Foutain Filled With Blood - Copperhill Male Quartet 13. Silver Slippers - Shands Superior Jubilee Singers 14. Light In The Valley - Mrs. T.A. Duncans 15. Shine On Me - Cliff Carlisle 16. Oh Death - Pace Jubilee Singers 17. Thou Carest Lord - Holy Ghost Sanctified Singers 18. My Loving Brother - Ed Mcconnell 19. Take Thy Burden To The Lord - Seventh Day Adventists Choir 20. Lonely Tomb - Wade Mainer 21. Goin' To The West Where Jesus Is - Blind Joe Taggart 22. Lonesome Valley - David Miller 23. Prayer Meeting - Rev J F Forest

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