Campbell Brothers Featuring Katie Jackson – Pass Me Not / Arhoolie CD-461

Description

Arhoolie CD 461

1. Pass Me Not, Oh Gentle Savior
2. I Feel Good
3. Walk With Me
4. Jump For Joy
5. Mary, Don’t You Weep
6. None But The Righteous
7. What A Friend We Have In Jesus
8. Morning Train
9. There Is No Failure In God
10. I’ve Got A Feeling
11. What’s His Name?…Jesus!
12. It Won’t Be Very Long
13. Medley Of Offertory Tunes
14. End Of My Journey

REVIEW

“Chuck and Phil Campbell are the sons of Bishop Charles Campbell, pastor at The House of God Church in Rochester, New York. They play in their father’s church helping to get the congregation worked up to a frenzy of faith. So much for the idea that this music was confined to remote out-of-the-way churches in rural Florida and Georgia… Chuck started playing as a child when at the age of twelve his father gave him his first six-string Gibson lap steel for Christmas. Now, at age 40, Chuck is one of just three steel guitarists who are picked each year at the Annual Keith Dominion General Assembly in Nashville, Tennessee. He believes his tuning is a gift from God, and I’m inclined to agree.

This man is the Jimi Hendrix and the Django Reinhardt of the steel guitar. He makes it sing and soar and talk and weep. Truly magnificent and moving. Together with brother Phillip on electric guitar or bass, Katie Jackson (vocals on several tracks), youngest brother Darick on eight string lap steel (three tracks) and vocals (one track), Charles Flenory (guitar on three tracks), and Phillip’s son Carlton Campbell on drums, this is an amazing collection of gospel musicians. Recorded in the studio in Gainesville, Florida in May 1997, except for two tracks recorded in a studio in Rochester, and an absolutely mind-blowing ‘live’ track from the National Assembly in Nashville, this disc is absolutely incredible.

For everyone who has become jaded and cynical about modern blues, gospel, R&B or any other type of music, you must experience this music. It’s so full of spririt, tremendous talent, imagination and unrestrained joy that it could move even David Rockefeller, temporarily at least. Katie Jackson may be gospel but she’s a ringer for a South-side Chicago blues-belter. Her ‘Morning Train’ and ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ are both wonderful,…

‘It Won’t Be Very Long’ features Chuck’s use of the E-bow to make the steel sound so human-voice-like it’s eerie, and on ‘What’s His Name? …Jesus,’ it’s the Holy Ghost Clumax that’s captured in all it’s frenetic and passionate glory…. Quite a fitting and appropriate finale, but wait…there’s more! This disc actually closes with a breakneck ‘Medley Of Offertory Tunes’ and the transcendental ‘End Of My Journey.’ What a package! What a performance!…”

–Andy Grigg, Real Blues