We’ve blogged about the casino in the Sahara Tahoe, about the movie theatre on a downtown street in Memphis, and about blues joints in Chicago.

Now it’s time to come to church.

A Message from the Ghetto by The Sons of Truth, one of the five digital Stax titles reissued to iTunes exclusively and digitally to help celebrate the label’s 50th anniversary, is a gospel album wrapped in the trappings (wah-wah and psychedelic guitars, heavily-layered multitracked vocals, etc.) of a contemporary soul / funk album circa 1972, which is when it was originally released on Stax Records’ gospel subsidiary, The Gospel Truth.

The influence of Curtis Mayfield’s harmonized, vocal gospel music with the Impressions is strong and mighty on A Message, especially on its title track, a comfortable shuffle through an inner city neighborhood, proud if down on its luck, that flows free and easy upon its reggae guitar and drumbeat.

A slam-bang rhythm section and continuous psychedelic guitar solo, roiling and erupting from just beneath the sound’s surface, create a hot sound in “It’s You (You’re The One)” that’s very different from the rest of this Message. The Sons even repurpose James Brown’s legendary “I Feel Good” (because “I’ve got the Holy Ghost!”) while retaining its trademark frantically itchy, rhythm guitar scratch.

A Message also illustrates the growing influence of that independent label from Detroit, Motown Records, on the soul music of the day: The upper-registered verses and chorus of “He’s All We Need,” sure seem to echo Marvin & Tammy’s “You’re All I Need to Get By” (especially lines like “He’s all we need to get by”); “I Don’t Know Where We’re Headed” whips straight out of the gate with electric guitar, keyboards and voices that sound like Eddie Kendricks and the rest of The Temptations commandeered the recording studio to recount a litany of modern malaises.

After listening to A Message from the Ghetto, contemporary roots gospel ensembles such as The Holmes Brothers and Five Blind Boys from Alabama don’t seem shot in from so far out in left field any more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.