| Gospel Train | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Sister Rosetta Tharpe |
| Cover: | Mercury20201 308.jpg |
| Recorded: | 2 and 5 July 1956 |
| Studio: | Mercury Sound Studio, New York |
| Length: | 32:02 |
| Label: | Mercury MG-20201 |
Gospel Train is a studio album by the gospel and R&B artist Sister Rosetta Tharpe. It was recorded in July 1956 and released in December the same year.[1] [2] Tharpe is accompanied on vocals by the traditional black gospel quartet the Harmonizing Four on some of the songs. The album was noted as part of Tharpe's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was already known as one of gospel's most successful and pioneering artists and a leading purveyor of the genre's blending with R&B as a precursor to rock and roll.[3] [4] This album finds her accompanied by musicians from the New York jazz scene.[5] The record marks a stylistic change in her recording career, presaging her influence on blues and blues rock artists of the 1960s.[6] [7] [8]
Musically, Gospel Train is rooted firmly in gospel music, specifically in the traditional black vein.[9] Blues often appears as well.
A contemporary review in Billboard quotes the Methodist minister John Wesley: "'Why should the devil have all the good tunes?'"; the reviewer commenting that "Sister Tharpe shows that he hasn't, and she does this with her well-known rocking rhythm and zest".[2] The album was noted as part of Tharpe's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[10] Author and critic Tom Moon cited the record as a choice of the catalog in 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.[11] The website AllMusic called it "a super collection", noting it as an album highlight of the singer's career.[12] Premier Guitar described the guitar work in the album as exhibiting "more technique and less raunch", concluding the record is "worth it just for the swinging, twangy and so ambient and vibey '99½ Won't Do'."[13]
Gospel Train marks Tharpe's embrace of the rock and roll sound that she was one of the shapers of, while still experimenting with unique characteristics that would come to define early rock and several other genres. These genres' stages were set through the vocal stylings of Tharpe. The starting of soul music are heard in Trains third and tenth tracks. "Two Little Fishes, Five Loaves of Bread", the former, looks ahead to the music of Etta James, reflected in Tharpe's showing off her "soulful, bluesy side... over a smooth backing". The genre is also reflected in the latter song, "How About You", on which she sings "the kind of vocal that would automatically be classified as soul a few years later." Blues rock's future is present on "Can't No Grave Hold Me Down". With both her "forceful" singing that "obliterate[d] the fuzzy boundary between blues and rock 'n' roll" and "nice, pithy guitar solo", it shaped a style that the Rolling Stones would continue on their 1964 debut record.
All tracks composed by Rosetta Tharpe except where noted.