The Faithful Wonders: Ol’ John (Behold Thy Mother)
Lucy Rodgers: I Found a Friend
Irish Britton: Lord I Wonder
All from The Sunday Gospel Open House (Checker, 1967)
In terms of bang for the buck, it’s hard to go wrong with this late ’60s release off of Checker which compiles a slew of gospel recordings from artists on the label. There’s at least four songs off of here that are outstanding and seriously, kudos to whoever that Checker mixed and mastered this; it has excellent production aesthetics for its era.1 It says a lot about how strong Checker’s gospel catalog was for them to be able to cherry pick for this comp.
For example, listen to how far forward the drummer gets put in the stereo mix on the Faithful Wonders’ song.2 There’s so much energy and power here and that also carries into Lucy Rodgers’s “I Found a Friend,” except, this time, there’s that full choir bringing down the hammer as well. 3
Take those same elements but then chill the mood out and you get Irish Britton’s “Lord I Wonder,” which has all the sound and volume of the choir (not to mention Britton’s soaring vocals) but then dials everything down on the musical front with a simple, bluesy ballad arrangement. Call it closing big. 4
- You’ll notice I only posted three though; I’m keeping a fourth in the wings. Also, the Stepfather of Soul was already blogging songs off this LP back in ’07! ↩
- This track is on Checker 7″ too – a slightly pricey piece but justifiably so. ↩
- This track also appears on a Rodgers’ LP on Checker ↩
- Couldn’t find any info on Irish Britton. ↩
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