Dragnet for Jesus

Wynona Carr | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 4, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Specialty
• ASIN: B000000QMP
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,635 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Cleveland's Wynona Carr was a sadly underrated master of metaphor in gospel songwriting. Her best-known release during her 1949-54 heyday was "The Ball Game," an extended metaphor with Satan as the pitcher, Solomon as the umpire, and so on. She had several other similarly clever songs, including "Dragnet for Jesus" (inspired by the TV show) and "15 Rounds for Jesus," that were never released at the time. It's thought that Specialty Records felt the songs were a little too clever and not straightforwardly devotional enough. There may also have been concern about the effect a jump-blues feel would have on a conservative record-buying public, although contemporary records by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and songs by Mahalia Jackson scarcely a decade later were equally jazzy. This 26-song collection covers a lot of stylistic ground: on "I'm a Pilgrim Traveler" (modeled on the blues song "St. James Infirmary") and an "Our Father" recorded at the Rev. C.L. Franklin's Bethel Baptist Church, she shows off a full-voiced sanctified style with impressive power and expression. Turning the tables on R&B artists who were not above rewriting gospel numbers with secular lyrics, she borrows back Wynonie Harris's "Good Rockin' Tonight" and rewrites it as "I Heard the News (Jesus Is Coming Again)." --Bob Bannister

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars greatest gospel cd on the market today, May 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dragnet for Jesus (Audio CD)

if you dont dig wynonna, you must have grown up on pluto. this is her greatest album, and although her secular work is fine, these are the tunes that symbolize the Golden Age of Gospel.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Album, March 15, 2004

By 

R. Gutierrez "themexican" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dragnet for Jesus (Audio CD)

'I Heard Mother Pray One Day' is probably worth the cost of entry. Sister Carr is definitely underrated and under-appreciated. My guess is if she had focused less on gospel she would have been a bigger deal. She also had the curse of the successful novelty recording (although some of her novelty songs like dragnet are pretty darned entertaining). Anyway buy this album and put a track on a mixed tape and people will almost always ask... "Who is that?!"

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, November 9, 2002

By 

J. Julian "thebigj" (London UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dragnet for Jesus (Audio CD)

is the only word for this Cd of this sadly neglected "great".
The voice is out of this world and this really is gospel at its very best.
If you are already a gospel fan or just want reat music in your collection then this is one that you must get.
"Sister" Carr stand up to any of the gospel greats from this era as this album proves.