The latest part of the ongoing series chronicling, in no particular order, the greatest 1001 recordings made by Christian artists

722. SISTER ROSETTA THARPE & THE LUCKY MILLENDER ORCHESTRA - ROCK ME, 1941. From the album 'The Complete Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Vol 1', Frémeaux & Associés.
This exquisite version of the old spiritual song of God's protection in times of trouble was also one of the inimitable Sister Rosetta Tharpe's early forays into the world of recorded music. A number of surprising factors ultimately combine to make this a masterclass of gospel blues including Tharpe's raw but accomplished guitar solo at the very start. Set to the sedate Glenn Miller-like backdrop of the Lucky Millender Orchestra, the combination of rough and smooth creates a wonderful juxtaposition of musical styles at a time when amplified guitars - let alone one played by a black woman mixing spiritual themes with secular music - were something of an admirable commercial risk. Add to the mix Tharpe's ability to change vocal style and ultimately the whole urgency of the track from tender to gritty on a sixpence before powerfully and spectacularly holding those long notes at the end and it's clear why Sister Rosetta remains one of the most influential and captivating artists of all time.
Lins Honeyman

Fraction

723. FRACTION - SONS COME TO BIRTH, 1971. From the album 'Moon Blood', Angelus.
If you thought that, other than Larry and Randy, all early Jesus music was soft West Coast country rock, you're clearly not a connoisseur of psych rock. For today, 42 years after it was first recorded, there are a clique of collectors - probably very few of them Christians - prepared to pay up to $2,500 for a copy of the ultra-rare original vinyl release. It has subsequently been re-issued both on vinyl and CD. Psych rock reviewers have gone overboard. One wrote, "Imagine the Doors at their most swampy and acid-fried being pulled into a giant Jesus-shaped black hole and you'd be somewhere close to the atmosphere on show here. The paranoid, faith-fixated vocals are something you've seriously got to hear for yourself. This is a dark, intense psych classic." I don't know who Fraction's vocalist Jim Beach is but when he sings "How many times I've promised the Lord my faith/Still wondering in the desert without my place" the effect is indeed unforgettable.
Tony Cummings

724. DAVID HUFF - THE BEST IS YET TO COME, 2013. From the album 'Wait', Giant.
Great tracks have the ability to register deep into the psyche so that months, even years since you last heard them they come flooding back like an iPod in the brain. And with music made by believers there is always the potential for spiritual truth to rise to the surface too to bring guidance or encouragement. This hugely catchy chunk of pop rock, recorded by Mr Huff in his Georgia studio, is a track that would benefit all those beginning to succumb to unbelief and negativity. Down the decades, the veteran singer, songwriter, producer - with David & The Giants and as a solo - has recorded hundreds of tracks. I would suggest that he's never made a better one.
Tony Cummings

725. DOUGLAS MILLER - MY SOUL IS ANCHORED IN THE LORD, 1985. From the album 'Unspeakable Joy', Gospearl.
This smouldering gospel ballad is one of the greatest in black gospel history. Miller's bottom-heavy gravelly baritone wrings every piece of soul as he emotes the lyrics "Though the storms keep on raging in my life/And sometimes it's hard to tell the night from day/Still that hope that lies within is re-assured/As I keep my eyes upon that distant shore/I know he'll lead me safely to the blessed place he has prepared/But if the storms don't cease and if the winds keep on blowing/My soul has been anchored in the Lord!" This most powerful of tracks still has the capacity to deeply affect listeners. One Amazon customer who bought the 'Unspeakable Joy: Classic Gold' re-issue wrote, "When I just sat down and listened to the words, and received the true message I began to shout, then cry, and shout again!" The song was, in fact, written by Miller during a time of great trial. The singer and songwriter had been discovered by gospel matriarch Mattie Moss Clark and signed with bright new gospel label Gospearl. But things had turned unimaginably sour for Miller. As he recounted in Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia, "My song 'When I See Jesus' was so hot that it had only been out three months and they [Gospearl] wanted me to do another album. So I did 'Joy Of The Lord Is My Strength' and they released it the week of the COGIC convocation in Memphis. The owners sold so many records there that they went back to Baltimore and bought themselves a Mercedes Benz. I got nothing." That wasn't the breaking point, though. The last straw was when the owners threw a party celebrating Miller's LP hitting number one on the Billboard gospel chart. He recounted, "They had a party celebrating the album going number one and didn't invite me." At that point, Miller started legal proceedings against Gospearl Records. "I was in Baltimore not knowing if I was going to have to go to court or not. But when I came to Baltimore the owners sent me messages that if I didn't sing for them, I wasn't singing for anybody and they'd have me killed. That's how serious this got. One of them threatened my life. I was sitting up there in the hotel scared to come out of my room. . . God gave me 'My Soul Is Anchored In The Lord' because I was going through a storm, brother."
Tony Cummings

726. KEITH GREEN - HE'LL TAKE CARE OF THE REST, 2008.
From the album 'The Greatest Hits', Sparrow.
It could be argued that no other Christian artist has quite matched the calibre and passion of the late great US singer, songwriter and revivalist Keith Green and this previously unreleased live recording serves to sum up the sheer brilliance of the man's writing, musicianship and stage presence in one fell swoop. Accompanying himself solely with an infectious rolling piano lick, this fun song of God's faithfulness sees Green in light-hearted mode as he conjures up conversations between Moses and Noah and their maker using mock street talk whilst delightfully chuckling at the now famous "he is divine and you are de branch" line as if he'd just thought up the joke. Green's command of both the song and his audience is electrifying as he forthrightly instructs those innocently clapping along to keep quiet until he "gives the word" because there might be "some little old lady out there who needs to hear the lyrics" before chastening some poor souls who carry on regardless with a swift "can't you follow directions?" Green does all this whilst delivering a killer vocal performance without ever missing a beat and then finally invokes a mass singalong that ends the performance on a high. Green was easily the match of better known mainstream troubadours such as Billy Joel and Loudon Wainwright III in terms of craftsmanship and stage presence and this track shows why there is still a yet to be filled Keith Green-shaped hole in the world of Christian music.
Lins Honeyman

727. MY LITTLE DOG CHINA - HER MACHINING, 1994. From the album 'The Velvis Carnival', Alarma.
My Little Dog China were an extremely short lived alt rock band fronted by singer/songwriter Kevin Clay. The whole album 'The Velvis Carnival' is a powerful assault on commercialised Christianity. In the sleevenotes Clay wrote, "The machine of the music industry, media and church creates false images to sell their produce and/or message of people." On "Her Machining" Mr Clay snarls "It's the machine that turns blood to green" over a jagged guitar riff produced masterfully by The Choir's Steve Hindalong.
Tony Cummings

The Crossing

728. THE CROSSING - RISE YE UP AND GO, 1990. From the album 'Rise And Go', Grrr.
Long before the Rend Collective Experiment began to explore Irish folk music as a fine receptacle for spiritual truth, this bunch of Celtic music enthusiasts based, not in the Emerald Isle, but in inner city Chicago, were making a series of delightful albums. Critical praise came from such places as Billboard and pioneering folk mag Sing Out! and only the most blinkered purist would deny the Jesus People USA-based band's winning ways with acoustic guitars, bouzouki, dulcimer, whistle, harp, bodhran and bones. This track caught them at the top of their game. It uses the image of medieval sentries in a telling exhortation to heed Christ's summons. "The watchman stands upon the hills/The piper on the wall/Waiting for the signal/To give the battle call."
Tony Cummings

729. MXPX - AMERICANISM, 1995. From the album 'Teenage Politics', Tooth & Nail.
A British reviewer once wrote about 'Teenage Politics', "What the album lacks in deep insights, careful argument or complex instrumentation it more than makes up for in three chord, 1,000 beats per minute adolescent charm. As rough and silly as the cartoon on the cover sleeve and as full of hope and happiness as a kid at their first rock show, 'Teenage Politics' is so much more than the sum of its parts. It's a beautiful moment in musical history." A bit OTT possibly, and personally I could never quite enjoy the dumb "Punk Rawk Show" or "Delores" the ode to Delores O'Riordan of The Cranberries for whom MxPx lead singer Mike Hierra confesses a crush. But I have to admit that considering the ultra conservative, near xenophobic patriotism that passes for a Christian world view in many American churches, their "Americanism" with its lines "They're lying when they tell us/This is the home of the brave and the land of the free" was a courageous track.
Tony Cummings

730. JAN KRIST - DECAPITATED SOCIETY, 1993. From the album 'Decapitated', REX.
When Cross Rhythms interviewed Detroit-based "new folk revival" singer Jan spoke about her 'Decapitated Society' album, which Billboard called "an incredibly powerful debut." Unfortunately the title track was simply too hard-hitting for Christian radio. The mother of three singer/songwriter remembered the title track's inspiration. "There was a girl there who was taking a baby in and the baby was sick. I was talking with her and what I found out was that it wasn't even her baby, that she was the babysitter. The mother was at work. And I just had this reaction that kind of went, 'Wow, our society has really gotten in deep.' We've kind of had to cut off our heads from our hearts and numbed ourselves so that we don't feel the pain of what's going on in our society. . . that a mother can't take time to be with her sick baby because she's got business meetings."
Tony Cummings

731. SCARECROW & TINMEN - SCARECROW & TINMEN, 1999. From the album 'No Place Like Home', Pamplin.
With the exception of Cross Rhythms' Mike Rimmer, most of the critics gave a thumbs down to the band's record label debut and for that matter their second 'superhero'. Clearly the band's eclecticism - taking in everything from pop to funk to rock - failed to connect with the cool journos and, though the band had been around as an independent unit since 1994, they called it quits soon after Pamplin/Organic Records folded. But Scarecrow & Tinmen left behind this gem of a track which with its "technofolk" sound wasn't dissimilar to the kind of thing Jars Of Clay sold a million with on their eponymous debut. A deliciously rhythmic acoustic guitar is followed by some socking percussion before the band's frontman Chris Padgett cleverly links the Wizard Of Oz characters to the timeless tale of regeneration. He sings, "I am the scarecrow and you are the tinmen/And we are not the same as we were/Changed by love and changed by compassion/We now have a new heart and mind." A great song from Padgett who went on to build a reputation for himself singing/recording Catholic liturgical worship music.
Tony Cummings

732. REVEREND F C BARNES AND REVEREND JANICE BROWN - ROUGH SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN, 1983. From the album 'Rough Side Of The Mountain', Consolating Sound.
In the '80s, just as acts like Andrae Crouch and The Winans were showing that slick production values were the way forward for securing a gospel radio hit, along came a downhome duo which completely contradicted this seeming irreversible trend. Rev Barnes was born Fair Cloth Barnes in 1929 and by 1959 the preacher and singer had founded The Red Budd Holy Church in North Carolina. In the late '70s he teamed up with another singing reverend, Janice Brown, and their rough hewn rural gospel found a receptive audience with North Carolina congregations and the duo were signed to Atlanta's AIR Records. In 1983 Barnes wrote a simple back woods song about overcoming tribulation, "Rough Side Of The Mountain" and Barnes and Brown's raw, unadorned rendition of the song became the title track of their second album. It became a monumental hit. In an age when 20,000 sales of a gospel album were considered good and 50,000 was a blockbuster, 'Rough Side of The Mountain' remained in Billboard's gospel Top 10 for over a year and sold half a million copies. It still sells today proving that downhome gospel with a powerful message can still stir hearts.
Tony Cummings

Brother John Rydgren

733. BROTHER JOHN RYDGREN - DARK SIDE OF THE FLOWER, 1968. From the album 'Silhouette Segments', American Lutheran Church.
For decades the strange substrata of Christian psychedelic rock was unknown to all save a few collectors able to locate the rarer-than-rare vinyl releases which were part of the avalanche of private press albums that came out during the height of the Jesus People revolution of the '60s and '70s. Now a whole new audience has emerged for those artefacts among non-Christian psych rock buffs and more and more CD re-issues are coming through including a compilation of the extraordinary output of pastor, broadcaster and director of TV/radio/films for the American Lutheran Church, John Rydgren. With a spoken word delivery that one critic described as "incredibly slick, velvety, deep, hovering a mere fraction of a tone above Lurch" and an uncanny ability to wed avant guarde jazz, sunshine pop and wild psychedelic sounds to narratives that spoke reams of spiritual truth to a drug-dazed culture. Rydgren's work was breathtakingly innovative. My favourite track of this broadcasting pioneer is "Dark Side Of The Flower" (a poem over sitar describing the disappointments of hippiedom) but wherever you look at his work you'll find stunningly inventive communication of timeless truth.
Tony Cummings

734. DAVID PEASTON - TWO WRONGS (DON'T MAKE IT RIGHT), 1989. From the album 'Introducing. . .David Peaston', Geffen.
David had roots steeped in gospel, his mother was gospel matriarch Martha Bass, though it was like his sister Fontella Bass that the singer made a pitch for mainstream R&B success after winning several competitions on the Showtime At The Apollo TV show. Something of a man mountain with a huge voice to match Peaston was signed to Geffen Records and the blend of his hoarse rasp swooping up to the creamiest falsetto made it a compelling sound whether singing soul ballads, jazz standards or on this, a chunk of juddering funk. This, his first single, made it to number three in the Billboard Black Singles chart and for the next few years David was busy touring and recording albums with a gospel project made in 1993 with his mother and sister demonstrating he hadn't left his church roots. Later in his life things got particularly tough for the soul gospel man. Diagnosed with diabetes he eventually had to have both his legs amputated and died in 2012, from complications with the disease, at the age of 54. Today his magnificent voice seems largely forgotten both in the gospel and R&B fields but this old hit of his, despite having an '80s funk production by Michael J Powell very much of its time, still hits home as he offers his girlfriend a simple morality tale.
Tony Cummings

735. SOZO - GLOBAL CULTURE SEGA CHILD, 1997. From the album 'The Walk', N-Soul.
Despite a highly commercial sound a bit like early Superchick, Sozo never found the major CCM popularity their talent deserved. Built around keyboard whizz and programmer Corey Pryor (a native Australian who was once a member of the Newsboys) and his singer wife Danielle, Sozo delivered catchy, Euro-influenced techno pop which would have sounded great in clubland or on the radio. This was their best song, a neat depiction of a technology-besotted world losing its way. One or two of the examples in the lyrics have already dated but that only underlines how fast we're losing the plot.
Tony Cummings