Roots fervor

One of the pleasant surprises at last month’s Grammy Awards was the introduction of the “Best Roots Gospel Album” category.

According to a 2014 Recording Academy press release, the category was created to honor “traditional Southern gospel and other ‘roots’ gospel albums as both a protector of the heritage of this music and an acknowledgement of the growing interest [in] and support of these genres.”

Or maybe the Academy simply realized that the traditionally white “Contemporary Christian” category and the traditionally black “gospel” category were no longer broad enough to reflect the stylistically diverse forms that Christian musical expression is taking these days.

The inaugural “Best Roots Gospel Album” winner, and a most deserving one at that, was Shine for All the People (Compass) by Mike Farris. A visual cross between Jack White and Dr. John and a Christian since kicking alcohol and drug addiction over a decade ago, the former Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies frontman had released gospel albums before. But, passionate and soulful though they were, they lacked the focus and musical and emotional dynamics to do justice to the revivalistic fervor of his live shows.

None of those problems afflict Shine for All the People, which rocks, rolls, shuffles, and grooves with several clear purposes. One of them is to showcase Farris’ marvelous voice, an “instrument” so black sounding that it could not only stump participants in a race-guessing blindfold contest but also prove that, if a white man can’t sing the blues, he sure can sing their sanctified counterpart.

Another of its purposes is to alert those jaded by the predictability of so much contemporary music, and maybe even so much contemporary life in general, to the elevating power of music forged in the Pentecostal fires of rural, Deep South churches. Making Thomas Dorsey’s “The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow,” J.B. Lenoir’s “Jonah & the Whale,” Mary Gauthier’s “Mercy Now,” and Harry Dixon Loes’ “This Little Light of Mine” sound as if they belong on the same album is no mean accomplishment.

“I want our music to be joyful and uplifting,” says Farris in the album’s internet-available “mini-documentary.” “I’m hoping that it’s gonna make a difference to somebody. That’s the ultimate goal.”

This much is indisputable: As captured on Shine for All the People, Farris’ music has obviously made a difference to the members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Roots runners-up

Mike Farris had formidable “Best Roots Gospel” competition. With Forever Changed (MCM World Media) and His Way of Loving Me (Grace) respectively, the middle-aged country hit makers T. Graham Brown and Tim Menzies (ex-Bandana) delivered detailed (if overlong in Brown’s case) testimonies to the amazingness of grace.

And, although the inclusion of two albums bearing the Gaither Music Group imprimatur—the Gaither Vocal Band’s Hymns and The Martin’s A Cappella—felt somewhat un-diverse, there was no gainsaying the fidelity of the former to its rich source material or the entertaining way that the latter put a down-home spin on a style pioneered long ago by another gifted sibling act, the 2nd Chapter of Acts.

What’s hard to explain is how the Academy overlooked the two-disc Saturday Night/Sunday Morning (Superlatone) by Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives. Admittedly, only the second half is gospel. But what gospel it is!

Beginning with “Uncloudy Day” (featuring Mavis Staples on lead vocals), climaxing with the Stuart original “Cathedral” (a holy-rolling tribute to Mississippi churchgoing), and skillfully mining numerous roots-gospel veins along the way, it puts the first disc’s rabble-rousing rockabilly into an edifying, Prodigal Son context. —A.O.