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Are You Bound for Heaven Or Hell: Best of

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Are You Bound For Heaven or Hell?
Reverend J. M. Gates
Columbia/Legacy Records CK-65710
Legacyrecordings.com
"A horse will buck you, a cow will hook you, a mule will kick you, and the Devil's in the flying machine." Eternal, spiritual observations such as this permeate the 19 mini-sermons collected here by Columbia. Rev. J.M. Gates was the most popular, successful and prolific of all recorded preachers. His 1945 funeral was the largest black funeral in Atlanta until the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Anachronistically humorous on the surface, this CD is actually a deep, honest look inside Southern African-American culture in the second quarter of the 20th century. To be a successful preacher, one must address the daily concerns of one's parishioners and identify the evils and errors that afflict them. Well, here are those concerns, evils and errors in the guise of Satan, with Rev. Gates rolling up his sleeves and wrestling him down. A beautiful, thorough timepiece, the record includes "Things That You Can Move Don't Ask God to Move," "The Woman and the Snake," "Pay Your Policy Man," "Kinky Hair is No Disgrace," "Saturday Night Black Mariah Riders," "Meeting the Judge on a Sunday Morning" and "Did You Spend Christmas Day in Jail?"

The Rev. James M. Gates' (1884-1945) sermons are an absolute HOOT! Basically, he was doing an African-American version of the sort of thing Billy Sunday was doing at the time. Apparently aimed at a rural, fundamentalist audience (Rev. Gates preached at a church in Atlanta), these are old fashioned rip-roaring countrified hellfire and brimstone tirades against "You pocket pickers, you midnight ramblers, you whiskey drinkers, you mother heart-breakers, on the hell bound express." Hoo boy! For the most part, unless you subscribe to this kind of religion, you will find this more entertaining than inspiring, especially ones like "Mannish Women" (Some women are walking like men, and some men are walking just like the women!).

Rev. Gates seems to be earnest through most of the proceedings, but some of this was clearly intended to be comical, such as "Kinky Hair is No Disgrance", where our man gets into a dialogie with the sisters in the congregation about race pride, and "Scat to the Cat and Sooey to the Hog," some outrageously counttrified advice on marital bliss with even wilder responses from the congregation (this last one was banned in 1931, listen and see why).

Lots of fun here. Rev. C.L. Franklin (Aretha's Dad) was greatly influenced by Rev. Gates' "Dead Cat on the Line" (not included here) and one would suspect that T.D. Jakes may have given Rev. Gates a listen or two. Only problem is that while these selections make for great listening, as Rev. Gates usues a lot of imaginative imagery as well as well as (sometimes unintentional) humor, a lot of other fascinting sermons of his such as "Is a Rope on Your Neck," "Dead Cat on the Line," "FDR Is Everbody's Friend," "You Negro Haters" "Joe Louis," etc. are not included here. Those sermons are on other CD's though, so this is a VERY good start.

This album is classic and shows where African Americans were at the turn of the 20th century. The sad part is, a lot of the content is still reflective of where we are as a people. I enjoy the fact that this great man was captured in time.