Funky Gospel Friday, or, Thank You For Another Great Year!

The Mighty Voices of Wonder - I Thank The Lord

Tomorrow will be the second anniversary of Get on Down With the Stepfather of Soul! It seems like only yesterday I announced the first anniversary, replete with statistics, and posted Episode #12 of the podcast, the "Anniversary Show." Well, the fanfare will be lesser this go-round due to pressing time commitments (like the MPRE - a legal ethics exam required for admission to the practice of law - tomorrow) and sundry other obligations, but I would like to thank all of you who check out this little nook of the Internet. Knowing that you guys are checking out my little labor of love, and receiving such great feedback and e-mail from you all, gives me continued encouragement to keep doing this thing as close to daily as possible. I certainly look forward to the third year of this blog and the podcast being a great year, and I hope you'll come along for the ride! Having said all that, I suppose it's only appropraite to feature something about thankfulness, right?

Today's selection came from Numero's great - as per usual for Numero - comp Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal, which is comprised of fine '70s gospel featuring a decidedly funky groove. By the '70s, gospel artists were regularly raiding the worlds of soul music to update their sound, and often in the process they would cover soul tunes (see the great article at Sir Shambling's site on this topic to hear some great material). On "I Thank The Lord," the Mighty Voices of Wonder take on the Sam and Dave tune "I Thank You" with great results. Once a rock-solid groove is established by the rhythm section and the lead singer replaces Sam Moore's "soul clapping" intro with a little testifyin', the group makes the connection to "I Thank You" by using the chorus a couple of times. After then, however, the tune dives into more traditional gospel territory, but the groove keeps on working along. This is a serious head-and-shoulder bopper, although it is easy to get distracted by the drummer, who gets cymbal-happy about halfway through and forgets to subsequently lay back.