Mahalia Jackson:

The World's Greatest Gospel Singer:(1955)

Newport 1958:(1958)

Great Gettin' Up Morning:(1959)

I Believe:(1960)

The Power And The Glory:(1960)

Great Songs of Love and Faith:(1962)

Bless This House:(1963)

Sings America's Favorite Hymns:(1977)

Mahalia Jackson, there is no more powerful a voice. If she doesn't make you feel something, well, maybe there's something dead inside you. She is one of my favorite singers of all time, second only to Mavis Staples. One of the many things I find most amazing about Mahalia's voice is how soulful, powerful, and ground shaking she could sing in the quietest of voices. Now she could certainly get loud, but she had this otherworldly ability to sing at barely a whisper, and still move mountains. I'll keep this simple, she was awe inspiringly amazing.

God Don't Never Change:

The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson:(2016)

A sunday special. 

I picked up this compilation album of various artists covering Blind Willie Johnson songs recently. I had to... It's got Tom Waits, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Lucinda Williams, and a host of others on it. I must admit, as much as I dig this record, some tracks are more interesting than others. The Waits tracks are stand outs. Blind Willie has always been a haunting figure in blues to me. I was thirteen when an older friend gave me a cassette of various blues artists, on that tape was Blind Willie Johnson's Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground. Out from my speakers came a ghost, moaning woefully and playing the rustiest slide guitar I'd ever heard. Unlike all the other artist and songs on that tape, this song felt so intense, and mournful that it almost seemed wrong to listen to it. It was so personal. To this day I consider that to be maybe the penultimate blues tune. I'm so attached to that lyricless version that I was a little disappointed to hear the lyrical version by Rickie Lee Jones that closes this compilation. In any case, this is a very cool record in the collection, and a killer Sunday morning jam.