Barrett’s references are occasionally direct: The electric piano on Do Not Pass Me By Vol. Church choirs were the crucible for Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, and scores more. Western popular music would be nothing without Black gospel: Sister Rosetta Tharpe electrified rock’n’roll to life in her own two hands. The astonishing brassy peals of “ I Shall Wear a Crown” establish the track as a rightfully representative title for the set, swaggering toward a roaring conclusion that hits like a platinum freight train.īarrett’s arrangements fold the profound influence of Black American gospel music back on itself they pull the spiritual playing field closer to ear level by reinforcing his ecclesiastic ends with popular sounds indebted to the genre. Barrett doses counterculture with piety on “ Turn on With Jesus,” an after-school special in song form that escalates into near-psychedelic shrieks at its end. “ Do Not Pass Me By,” the lead cut to Like a Ship’s follow-up, is a rollicking demand for recognition “ After the Rain” and “ So Many Years” are vibrant and especially uplifting standouts from Do Not Pass Me By Vol. They celebrate the abundant opportunities to be joyful on Earth before the hour comes to shuffle off the mortal coil, a massive nondenominational benefit of Barrett’s youth advocacy. Though death is necessarily a central theme of gospel music, Barrett’s selections search for love, redemption, hope, and clarity. The other four parts of I Shall Wear a Crown are stuffed with gems, and their details illuminate what make Like a Ship such a sparkling prize. It’s painful, frightening, and lonely to feel cast out on the open ocean, but even as troubles endure, they never have to be borne alone. Individual agonies dissolve in the magnificent din of the singers’ adulation. The record’s stunning highlights-“ Nobody Knows,” “ It’s Me O Lord,” “ Like a Ship”-are wide-open reaches for deliverance, offered in sweeping, passionate harmonic layers. Their collective voices capture tender vulnerability and earnest hope, seeking relief and protection at the edge of uncertainty. The distinction of youth over children’s choir is important: The singers were a bunch of 12-to-19-year-olds, which is to say, young people staring over the precipice, wondering where their lives were going to go. Light in the Attic reissued it in 2010 it remains a singular jewel. Barrett’s work suggests the best place to start is in song.īarrett and the Youth for Christ Choir released Like a Ship… (Without a Sail), their first record together, in 1971. Before he used Barrett’s devotions to frame bars about a ruined t-shirt, West had wondered aloud how he could find a way to talk to God again. In more recent years, Barrett has attracted attention from a wider national audience via Kanye West, who sampled his “ Father I Stretch My Hands” on The Life of Pablo. The charismatic minister expanded his local outreach as it grew in popularity, later leading his own Life Center Church of God in Christ.īarrett’s optimistic approach to his ministry shines across I Shall Wear a Crown, a new 5xLP Numero Group box set. Barrett’s fusion of gospel music with more contemporary idioms attracted a passionate following in his home city, even drawing the likes of Maurice White and Donny Hathaway to its pews. Barrett’s own adolescent struggles had called him back to the South Side neighborhood he’d known as a boy his mission manifested itself in the Youth for Christ Choir. Indiana Avenue in Chicago, the address where the 23-year-old pastor stepped into the pulpit of Mt. Barrett and his followers, God lived at 5512 S.
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