Fire In My Bones Gets Fired Up

Almost 4 hours of music on 3 discs - undiluted, stripped-down gospel!

By Blurt Staff

Tompkins Square is set to drop Fire In My Bones, a three-CD collection of "raw, rare and otherworldly gospel" produced by music scribe Mike McGonigal. It stands to be one of the year's must-purchase archival sets, and a portion of proceeds will go to the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund. The compilation hits stores Oct. 27.

The majority of this music has never been reissued on CD, or in any other form (most tracks were originally released on regional independent labels). Most post-WWII compilations of African-American gospel music naturally concentrate on the astounding quartet and solo vocalist sounds made during the music's Golden Age. Fire In My Bones attempts to address and collect more neglected sounds from that era (and on to the present day).

Dozens of traditions are represented. Some go back hundreds of years while others seem to have been arrived at as soon as the tape began to roll. Field recordings and studio tracks are all mashed together, with solo performances next to congregational recordings, hellfire sermons next to afterlife laments. Leon Pinson, Elder & Sister Brinson & the  Brinson Brothers, Grant & Ella, Straight Street Holiness Group, Theotis Taylor, Brother & Sister W B Grate - these artists will now be just a little less obscure.

Fire In My Bones provides a small peek at the incredible diversity and power of post-war  black gospel. Much of this music is raw, distorted and might sound a bit strange. But it is  not presented as a novelty freak show or as "outsider music." This is gospel - which we must always remember translates as "the good news"-as it has been sung and performed in tiny churches and large programs, from rural Georgia to urban Los Angeles. It is clearly among the most vibrant, playful, beautiful and emotionally charged music in the world.