Customer Reviews

Just a Closer Walk

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just about every time I pick up a harmonica, I happen to listen to a recording of Sonny Terry and I figure, what's the point? And Brownie McGee had a voice like great whiskey. Smooth and intoxicating.

Here, these two legendary bluesmen play gospel. And you will never hear a better version of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" in your life. Get it if you love blues or gospel.

These are songs and artists I grew up hearing as a child in Houston Texas. It is so good to hear them again; honest, moving. It you are interested in hearing this music as it was done for church audiences and hear the foundation of contemporary gospel, listen to this album.

I am a big blues fan, but not so much gospel. However, I have always been a Sonny and Brownie fan. This is different from most of their stuff and is one of my all time favorites. I can listen to this CD over and over. I have enjoyed it for several years and think you will too. I recommend it without reservation.

I've never been a big blues fan, but I developed a special interest in Sonny and Brownie because of their long friendships with Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and other folkies active in NYC in the '40's and '50's. Brownie and Sonny were raised in the hills of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. Each had a handicap, and when they were brought together as singers with harmonica and guitar, they clicked, at least on stage. This album was recorded in Oakland, California in 1957, and the men are in good form. The 38 minutes of religious songs here are as done in the rural black churches of the Depression years. Some of them, like "Some of These Days" and "I Shall Not Be Moved" were also staples of the white Southern churches (and were recorded by the Carter Family in the late 1920's.) I only knew five of these dozen hymns before hearing this record. If you have an interest in this kind of music, this CD is going to please you. Both men sing, solo and together, and Sonny's famous harmonica is a highlight of every track. Brownie's guitar licks were not half-bad, either. This may be their only recording for Fantasy Records, a Berkeley, California outfit, but it is good 'un.