God's Got It: The Legendary Booker and Jackson Singles

Reverend Charlie Jackson

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 5, 2003)
• Original Release Date: August 5, 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Casequarter
• ASIN: B0000AM6G4
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #155,582 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
These spirituals cut by the electric guitar-slinging Reverend in the 1970s are so full of old-fashioned fire-and-brimstone preaching and Delta mud from Jackson’s native Mississippi that they sound as if they were recorded 30 years earlier. So there’s no shortage of gritty chills on this disc, whether from the raggedy goodness of Jackson’s licks or his tales of struggle, sin, and souls wailing for redemption. The born-again sermonette "Wrapped Up and Tangled Up in Jesus" is as raw and idiosyncratic as anything ever played in a juke joint. The hair-raising "Testimony of Rev. Charlie Jackson," with its probing tremolo guitar, is the tale of Jackson’s first stroke and recovery. Yet the most potent number is "Something to Think About," where Jackson sings about Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, and the struggle for Civil Rights. But all 18 of these performances offer fire-breathing proof that the distance between blues and gospel can be less than a razor’s edge. --Ted Drozdowski

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Staggering - deserves 100 stars, August 7, 2003

By	Elmer Sigmon - See all my reviews

This has got to be one of the most intense, ferocious playing & shouting guitar evangelists I've ever heard, right up there with Rev. Utah Smith & Blind Willie Johnson. Every song here has a raw, relentless primitive funk that has to be heard to be believed (especially "I Gave Up All I Had" - just plain JAW-DROPPING!). It's great to know that music of this order is still alive and kicking. Where has Rev. Jackson been all my life??

I found the following info on Rev. Jackson at the AUM Fidelity web site (...). It describes him more coherently than I can:

"Reverend Charlie Jackson's God's God It is the first release on the brand new CaseQuarter label. After the better part of twenty-five years, the legendary early 1970s New Orleans Booker label (and mid 1970s Jackson label) recordings of the Baton Rouge gospel guitarist have finally been collected on CD. Ever since Reverend Jackson's Booker singles were discovered by gospel collectors in the 1970s and began to trickle out to a wider audience, his primal, funky guitar riffs have astounded listeners. Raw and unadorned and at other times spare and lyrical, these recordings are infused with sanctified energy and singing. In addition to his own singles collected here are records by Brother Ike Gordon and Caravan No. 2 of Zachary, which feature Reverend Jackson as accompanist. Further special features are two very rare songs from his own Jackson label which feature the wonderful vocals of Laura "Tiny B" Davis, as well as a recently discovered (in March 2003 !) Booker single that had seemingly been forever lost."

There is also this snippet of a NYT review:

"Rev. Charlie Jackson has immense rhythmic power, and the recordings bristle with intensity. The music is meant to make you move, and it is hard not to. These songs rock without taking even a small vacation." - The New York Times

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sanctified soul, December 26, 2004

By	twangmon (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews

Subtitled The Legendary Booker and Jackson Singles, this CD contains 18 tracks transferred from 45-rpm vinyl singles (whose master tapes have vanished) cut in the '70s by Reverend Charlie Jackson. A Fender Mustang-toting Baptist minister, Jackson picks bluesy lines à la Lightnin' Hopkins and sings with the feral intensity of Howlin' Wolf. "The Goodness of God" was recorded during a church service, so Jackson's distorted riffs and wild exhortations are accompanied by much sanctified shouting and communal call-and-response. Other songs -- such as the tremolo-laden "I Gave It All I Had" and the ferocious "Fix It Jesus" -- are performances Jackson recorded live in the studio backed by hand-clapping singers. In several instances, another vocalist takes the lead as Jackson strums churning grooves worthy of Pop Staples. When Laura Davis moans "I Am Thinking of a Friend" over the reverend's subtly throbbing riffs, she obliterates the distinction between a blues lament and a gospel hymn. Have mercy!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Earthy Blues Gospel, August 21, 2003

By	J. Christmas "joshua-one" (New Brunswick, NJ) - See all my reviews

If more preachers played Fender Jaguar guitars I might find myself converted.

While not as electrifying as Fred McDowell or Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Charlie Jackson combines raunchy blues licks with rough-edged folk metaphors "Jesus got his hook in me, and I don't wanna get loose"-- all I could want from a 70s gospel record.