6

This Sunday—In Person

Despite the number of live in-service recordings prior to 1962, James Cleveland’s concern had merit. In an age when hit-making machines such as Motown recorded multiple takes to get a song just right, a live performance was typically a one-shot assignment. Also, there were the acoustics of the church and the reliability of remote recording equipment to consider. As anyone who has produced a live program knows from painful experience, the audio technology that works well at rehearsal can malfunction during the actual performance. Further, some pastors may not want to convert their holy sanctuary into a commercial recording studio.

But Savoy wasn’t a complete live recording Luddite. It had begun planting the seeds of in-service recordings when it produced a full-length album of preaching and singing by the Reverend J. C. Crawford, pastor of Newark’s Beulah Baptist Church on January 22, 1962. Entitled A Nail in a Sure Place and released on the Gospel subsidiary, the album was a follow-up to a single Crawford and his congregation recorded on Gospel in 1960.¹ Savoy released it about the same time as the Angelic Choir’s debut album; they were both reviewed by Billboard in its May 19, 1962, issue.² Then, on June 24, about a week before the first James Cleveland–Angelic Choir session, Savoy recorded a full-length album by Elder Solomon Lightfoot Michaux. It was the first commercial disk Michaux made since his 1947 sides for Super Disc Records and featured his wife as a soloist and the Radio Church of God Choir in a reproduction of their popular radio broadcast.³ The album, engineered by Herb Fisher at Medallion Studios, was released in fall 1962. But Michaux’s album was a recreation of his radio broadcast, the choir responding in lockstep to the pastor’s declamations, and Crawford’s album was cast in the mode of the recording preachers and singing congregations of the late 1920s. Still, Roberts knew what his choir was capable of doing. He heard it every fourth Sunday morning at First Baptist. “He always said church recording had more soul, more feeling, and you can get into the music better,” Bootsy said. “And the people get more involved.”⁴ Cleveland ultimately consented, and the first live recording session for the Angelic Choir was scheduled for July 1, 1962.

The midday heat hung heavy over First Baptist Church that Sunday in early summer. By the time the recording session began, the temperature had climbed to a sweltering 86 degrees. Making things worse, the portable fans that would normally have kept congregants comfortable during the worship service were shut off to eliminate ambient noise. The choir and the congregation turned to cardboard hand fans to beat the heat. “You had to come prepared to stay there a few hours,” said Gertrude Hicks.⁵

Savoy engineers Paul Cady and Herb Fisher served as the onsite recording team; the name of the mobile recording service they used is lost to time. Robert Logan remembered Cady in particular as “very easygoing, soft-spoken, a nice man. He ran the wires from the [mobile recording] truck right to the church and the mikes.” As for the equipment, Logan recalled it as “antiquated” in comparison to today’s technology. “They had just the regular mikes—the lead mike, the instruments. [Cady] tried to get [a] good sound but back then, the technology was new.”⁶ Supervising the production was Fred Mendelsohn.

“It was one of the most exciting afternoons I can remember,” Mendelsohn told writer Viv Broughton, recalling that the album was made “under very tough circumstances. We were in the cellar of this very old church, before the Angelic Choir and Rev. Lawrence Roberts rebuilt their church…. We ran the equipment down there. It wasn’t of the best kind. In fact, I think we recorded monaural.” But despite the technological challenges, “we could hear the excitement when the choir was singing, and when James was singing, and especially when the choir was really getting the spirit.”⁷

Pianist-organist Alfred White was joined by three Cleveland associates, Thurston Frazier (1930–74) of the Voices of Victory and Voices of Hope, organ wunderkind Billy Preston (1946–2006) from Los Angeles, and pianist Leslie Vernon Bush (1929–81), a Voices of Tabernacle alumnus. On the drums was Joseph Marshall Jr. (1913–92), an in-demand session musician who worked with the Duke Ellington and Jimmy Lunceford bands. Born in Pensacola, Florida, but raised in Chicago, Marshall learned his craft from two of the city’s most influential bandleaders, Major N. Clark Smith (1877–1935) and Captain Walter Dyett (1901–69).⁸

Roberts opens This Sunday in Person—James Cleveland with the Angelic Choir (also referred to as Christ Is the Answer) by introducing “Professor Reverend James Cleveland.”⁹ He then relinquishes his pulpit to Cleveland, who for the remainder of the album proves a more than capable preacher, song leader, and emcee.

Like his idol, Eugene Smith of the Roberta Martin Singers, Cleveland introduces each selection with a brief religious message, a personal reminiscence, or a narrative related to the theme of the song. For the album’s anchor selection, “Christ Is the Answer,” Cleveland reminds the congregation that faith in God is the solution to life’s problems. He reiterates this theme during the preface to “It’s in My Heart”: “Some folks wonder why we sing as hard as we do, or why even though sometimes when things aren’t going so well, we keep hanging on to Christ.” Cleveland answers his own parenthetical question by referring to his personal salvation experience and conviction that God will make everything right. A trio of sweetly harmonizing female choristers assist on the track. And on “Only Believe,” recorded in 1960 with the Voices of Tabernacle, Cleveland declares God to be a source of daily respite, especially “when the bills are due and you don’t know where the money is coming from.” During “Jesus Will Bring Things Out,” he offers more examples of liberation from daily challenges: “If you feel like you’re all alone and don’t have a friend,” or “don’t have but a dime in your pocket … Jesus will make it all right.”

Cleveland leads seven of the nine issued selections. The choir supports him with sung responses to his calls. On “Trust Him,” however, the Angelic Choir assumes the dominant role, singing with the youthful exuberance it demonstrated on “It’s the Holy Ghost.”¹⁰ Two other songs recorded at the session, “He’s Got Everything You Need” and “Let Jesus Lead You,” have never been released.

The musicians’ responsibility on this album is chiefly to support Cleveland and the Angelic Choir; there are no solo opportunities. And despite a few spontaneous hallelujahs and other declamatory shouts, the live recording audience remains relatively passive. Perhaps the novelty of an everpresent recording apparatus, the oppressive heat, or both, tamped down the First Baptist congregation’s enthusiasm. Nevertheless, since there are no track breaks between the selections, like the 1954 Voices of Victory album, the first volume of the Cleveland–Angelic Choir collaboration was clearly intended for listening in one sitting. But unlike the Voices of Victory disk, This Sunday in Person does not endeavor to follow the traditional Baptist order of service; instead, it feels like an informally organized religious revival or song service.

Billboard lauded the Cleveland-Angelic Choir release on the front page of its November 3, 1962, issue, calling it an example of “a spiritual album moving well in the field.”¹¹ Roberts was equally pleased with the results. “It was truly an exciting evening and one that I shall never forget,” he wrote in his autobiography, The Gospel Truth. “Technically, there were some errors (as could be expected) and you could indeed find them if you wanted to sit down and pick them out like you would little fish bones out of the fish. More importantly, there was an interlocking spiritual connection between all persons in the church, and together we ultimately reached utopia.”¹² Like the Voices of Tabernacle, this partnership with the Angelic Choir was an early example of Cleveland’s ability to lift a choir to its maximum capabilities. “Within everybody, there’s a certain well of creativity,” Cleveland once said. “There are so many sitting there in the choir that don’t even know their own potential. I draw them out and I get a whole lot of stuff out of them that they’re not even aware they have.”¹³

The positive response to the album not only alleviated the apprehensions Cleveland had about live in-church recordings, but he sounded as if he enjoyed the experience. Savoy was also pleased with the results and released one single from the proceedings, “Trust Him” / “He Will Bring Things Out” (Savoy 4182). Besides being standalone representations of the album, the 45-rpm single steered the listener to the larger body of work by stating on its label that the selections are an “excerpt from ‘This Sunday In Person’ Savoy LP #14059.”

Savoy wasted no time approving a second live session for Cleveland and the Angelic Choir. It was scheduled to coincide with a New York appearance by Cleveland and the Voices of Tabernacle at gospel announcer and promoter Joe Bostic’s three-day Gospel Music Festival, held at Randall’s Island Stadium September 7 to 9.¹⁴ But the follow-up session, held at First Baptist on Friday, September 14, 1962, produced only one commercial single: “Redeemed” / “Leave It There” (Savoy 4188). For reasons that no one could recall more than five decades later, nothing else from that program was issued.

Savoy scheduled the next live session for Sunday, December 9, 1962, since Cleveland and Preston were planning to be back in New York to record a solo album of traditional hymns later that week.¹⁵ The goal for the December 9 recording was to rerecord all the material from the September date, including “Redeemed” and “Leave It There.” The Nutley weather on December 9 could not have been more different from the July session. The temperature hovered near freezing and snow fell gently on the church roof, “like a Christmas card come to life,” according to the album notes.¹⁶ Thurston Frazier returned to direct, Preston was back on organ—presumably, the entire crew of musicians had returned. Paul Cady was the sole onsite engineer, and Savoy released this session.

Not having heard the results of the first try, one cannot know for certain, but it may have been a blessing that the album was rerecorded, as it captured an intense spirituality in First Baptist that far surpassed Christ Is the Answer. As anyone involved in managing gospel music programs or recordings knows, the overall spirituality, meaning the exuberant atmosphere triggered by the members’ sensitivity to the presence of the Holy Ghost, cannot be planned. Besides, this time the Angelic Choir and the First Baptist congregation seemed more at ease in the presence of recording microphones. The less oppressive temperature couldn’t have hurt things, either.

As on Christ Is the Answer, Roberts relinquishes his pulpit to Cleveland, who takes full advantage, delivering spoken introductions to the songs, peppering the session with spontaneous interjections, and aurally encouraging the Angelic Choir and the congregation to participate fully in the service. The sound of individuals “getting happy,” or exulting in the spirit, can be heard in the background, motivating Cleveland to sing and preach with even more conviction. By “I’m Saved,” the penultimate track in terms of album placement but in reality the ninth of eleven total cuts (two closing selections were not issued), Cleveland is so invigorated that he explains how he feels by paraphrasing Jeremiah 20:9: “Like the man with fire shut up in his bones,” he shouts.

It is interesting that the album’s apex is not Cleveland’s or the choir’s singing, but sixteen-year-old Billy Preston’s inspired organ solo on the beloved nineteenth-century hymn, “How Great Thou Art.” As Cleveland recites the lyrics, Preston runs up and down the Hammond B3 keyboard, the instrument emoting like an evangelist in the throes of spirit possession. He even simulates the song’s reference to “roaring thunder” by leaning on the left side of the keyboard, much to the delight of the choir and congregation. It remains one of the most affecting organ solos in the gospel music lexicon.

On the album’s concluding track, “He’s All Right with Me,” Cleveland introduces a motif that he and the Angelic Choir will reprise on Peace Be Still—shifting the tempo midway through from a staid 4/4 to a rousing 2/4, or what Cleveland describes here as “churching it up a little bit.” Perhaps recognizing that not all record purchasers would be familiar with the sprightly music of Pentecostal and Holiness church services, Cleveland breaks the fourth wall to instruct record listeners to “go get your Bible and turn to the 150th Psalm.” He then paraphrases: “Praise him upon the loud sounding cymbals, and then on down at the end, it says praise Him with the timbrel and dance.” Pentecostal and Holiness churches often cite Psalm 150 to clarify their use of spontaneous and enthusiastic worship music. For the non-Pentecostal First Baptist membership, the rollicking music stimulates a nostalgia for the southern folk church tradition of their forebears. Once the musicians roll into the sanctified beat, the assembly claps hands, a chorus of tambourines clash, drums pound, organ and piano improvise on the spirited melody, and a group of singers vamp on “I feel all right.” The album does not end as much as fade, leaving the listener with the impression that the service continued long after the tape machine was turned off. An interesting note is that, according to Savoy’s matrix number sequence, “He’s All Right with Me” wasn’t the session’s final selection but the seventh of eleven total cuts.¹⁷

Preston’s vivacious organ solo so impressed the Savoy team that they subtitled volume 2 How Great Thou Art.¹⁸ Billboard considered volume 2 to be as sellable as volume 1, pinning four stars on the album in its March 16, 1963, issue.¹⁹

Cleveland had become a live recording convert. He told Billboard columnist Robert Darden in 1989, “I prefer a live session because so much more heart and expression comes through. A well-arranged studio album is always good. But as a missionary, many times the people who hear a live album respond to it as if they were there. Secondly, when you put a gospel artist in a church with a supporting choir that he or she works with 52 Sundays each year, you get a much more relaxed sound. You get something when people sing with the support of their church members, friends, and families you could not get in the studio.”²⁰

The last live performance to be recorded commercially in First Baptist Church’s wooden edifice was not by James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir but by the group near and dear to both Cleveland and Roberts: the Roberta Martin Singers.

Perhaps inspired by hearing Christ Is the Answer, Eugene Smith, the business manager of the Roberta Martin Singers, told Martin biographer Ronald Greer that he had approached Roberta earlier in 1962 with the idea of recording the ensemble live in church.²¹ However the idea came about, the success of the first two Cleveland–Angelic Choir live albums would have been enough to convince Savoy to move forward with a live album on the Martin Singers, one of its best and most consistent sellers.

It is not surprising that First Baptist Church was bulging with attendees eager to be present for the Roberta Martin Singers’ in-service recording on Wednesday, March 6, 1963. Entering the sanctuary to applause were some of the era’s most respected gospel singers assembled in one group: Roberta Martin, Eugene Smith, DeLois Barrett Campbell, Gloria Griffin, Norsalus McKissick, Archie Dennis, and “Little” Lucy Smith on piano.²² The Angelic Choir membership made up a large percentage of the live recording audience; Roberts encouraged them to attend as ambassadors of the church. Choir member Inez Reid said she would have attended anyway; for her, being in the presence of such famous singers in her own church “made us look more famous, too.”²³ But Gertrude Hicks attended purely out of respect for her pastor. “The Roberta Martin Singers wasn’t quite my cup of tea,” she admitted. “They sang that slow stuff and I like to pick [the tempo] up!”²⁴

It is fascinating that Eugene Smith cited Mark 4:37–39 in his narrative introduction to “The Storm Is Passing Over” that Wednesday: “Our lives are sometimes filled with storm clouds,” he intoned, “and we can find no rest until we pray to our heavenly father and hear him say, ‘Peace, Be Still.’ Then we can feel the storm is passing over because we have the peace, deep down, in our soul.”²⁵

Billboard gave four stars to both of the album’s singles, the Gloria Griffin-led “I’m Grateful” (released in spring 1963) and “What Would You Do without Jesus” (released in fall 1963).²⁶ In hindsight, producing this recording was inspired. From Out of Nowhere remains the only commercially available example of the Martin Singers singing live during their glory years. Less than six years later, Martin died and the group disbanded shortly thereafter.

Not long after the Martin Singers’ live recording, First Baptist Church was granted a fifteen-year construction loan, the little wooden church on Harrison was razed, its timbers carted off, and a hole dug on the footprint of the old church. As collateral for the loan, four First Baptist deacons—Ernest Nunnally, Fred Roundtree, Joseph Reed, and Roscoe Granthan—mortgaged their homes; Roundtree mortgaged two houses.²⁷ Roberts’s grandparents George and Annabelle Holmes did likewise. Robert Logan remembered that at first it was very difficult for the church to get the construction loan. But one Saturday night, he said, the Angelic Choir “did a concert for Marvin Fish, president of National Newark and Essex Bank Company. It was a special concert for him and his friends. They wept; it turned their hearts and they provided the loan.”²⁸

Many members, including Gertrude Hicks, traveled to Nutley to watch the church building come down. “It kind of hurt a little bit,” she remembered.²⁹ But the church wasted no time marketing its new capital project: the front cover of the Angelic Choir’s next studio album, recorded on June 26, 1963, at Beltone Studios at 1650 Broadway in New York, boasted architect E. T. Bowser Jr.’s black-and-white rendering of the striking edifice that was planned.³⁰ The album notes stated that the Angelic Choir’s “progressive patterns in music, songs, and arrangements are as modern as their new church.”³¹ Dennis Bines, a veteran Newark-area gospel musician, songwriter, and promotion man for Bishop Jeff Banks and the Revival Temple Mass Choir, said Roberts foresaw First Baptist not only as a place of worship but also as a recording studio for the Angelic Choir and other artists.³²

“We had some hard times trying to build a church,” Bootsy acknowledged. “The contractor walked out after a while, and half the church still had to be finished. My husband and Freeman [Johnson], they would go up every day before they started working on the church, [when] it was just a hole in the ground, and they would pray over the hole and ask the Lord to bring it up, bring it up.”³³

In a show of ecumenical goodwill, Trinity Temple Seventh-day Adventist Church in Newark invited the First Baptist congregation to use its edifice at 35 Hillside Avenue for worship services until construction was completed. “Being Seventh-day Adventists meant they worshipped on Saturday, so that made the church available for us on Sunday,” Robert Logan explained. “So we rented that church for over a year, and we brought our instruments, our organ anyway, from First Baptist Church. They had their own piano.”³⁴ It turned out to be a more convenient location for First Baptist members living in Newark or East Orange. It also meant that, at least for the foreseeable future, Trinity Temple would serve as the site for live recordings by James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir.