I’ve Got A Home In Glory Land

Gospel Supremes “Do, Lord, Remember Me” – Art Rosenbaum recorded the music found on the Art of Field Recording box set over the course of five decades, and as a result, the quality of the audio varies from track to track. There are some unexpected, unintentional benefits to this approach. For example, some of the more recent digital recordings document singers such as Mary Lomax, who performs unaccompanied traditional ballads dating back hundreds of years. Those records are clear and pristine, and place the emphasis on her voice and the words rather than an aural patina of oldness. On the other hand, the relatively poor quality of this recording of the Gospel Supremes from 1977 serves to compensate for the fact that the song’s arrangement is one of the most modern sounds in the set — the band play electric instruments, and the gospel tune is clearly shaped by R&B influences. The fidelity may be shaky, but the recording gives us a strong sense of time and place, and that context adds quite a bit to the charm of this already brilliant performance. (Click here to buy it from Dust-To-Digital.) (Originally posted on 12/24/2007)

Elsewhere: I’m going to be idolatin’ on Idolator today. Come see.