V/A "The Last Shall Be The First. Vol. 2" LP
Fat PossumMemphis, Tennessee, 1972: Seated behind a primitive mixing
board in a tiny Quonset hut at 64 Flicker Street, just a stones’
throw from the Illinois Central railroad tracks, Pastor Juan D.
Shipp crackles over the AM airwaves with an electrifying array
of the latest and greatest in gospel quartet sounds. With an
audience that spans the width and breadth of the Bluff City,
from truck cabs to taxi stands, from Mid-Town to Orange
Mound, from the Peabody Hotel to Payne’s Barbecue, if you’re
a fan of Memphis’s thriving gospel scene, you’re locked into
“Juan D” at K-WAM, “the Mighty 990,” the very station that —
twenty years earlier, during its first incarnation as KWEM across
the river in West Memphis, Arkansas — had first brought blues
wizard Howlin’ Wolf to the ears of recording engineer Sam
Phillips. Now, two decades later, having revolutionized the
music world with Sun Records and its holy trinity of Elvis
Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, the Wolf still
remained Phillips’ favorite. “This is where the soul of man never
dies,” he’d memorably declared of the six-foot-six gravel-voiced
force of nature, a description that could just as easily be applied
to so many of the artists whose records Shipp is now spinning
over the air.
Tracklist:
1. The Silver Trumpets - Little Wooden Church
2. The Calvary Nightingales - My Robe
3. The Sons of Harmony - Save Me Jesus
4. The Dixie Wonders - Stand By Me
5. The Faithful Travelers - He Died On The Cross
6. The Canton Spirituals - Leaning On The Lord
7. The Bible Tones - Never Grow Old
8. The Masonic Travelers - Until My Days Are Done
9. The Dixie Harmonizers - When I'm Gone
10. The Johnson Sisters - This Evening Our Father
11. The Dixieland Singers - I'm A Changed Man
12. The Chosen Wonders - Be So Glad
13. The Stars of Faith - I Thank You Lord
14. The Friendly QC's - Let's Praise His Name
15. The Silver Wings - He's A Mighty God
16. The Spiritual Harmonizers - It's A Needy Time
17. The Breckenridge Singers - Man On The Moon