(Blues / Gospel / Gospel Blues) Reverend John Wilkins - You Can’t Hurry God - 2011, FLAC (tracks), lossless

"Though born in Memphis, Tennessee, Reverend John Wilkins is a child of the North Mississippi Hill Country. His mother was born in Holly Springs and his father was from Hernando. While Wilkins grew up in the city, family parties and neighborhood picnics featuring country blues and fife and drum bands were never farther than a short drive over the Mississippi state line.
John Wilkins' father, the venerated blues and gospel singer Robert Wilkins, was the principal influence on his young son's development as a musician. Wilkins' father had made a series of recordings in the 1930s that included the original "Prodigal Son" (initially recorded as a secular song called "That's No Way To Get Along"), which was later recorded by the Rolling Stones. The elder Wilkins developed a gospel style that was based on his earlier country blues style - a style that developed into the rock 'n' roll sound that Memphis, and then the world, would later claim as it's own.
When the young John Wilkins was learning to play guitar, he picked up his father's gospel and country blues styles.
He also absorbed the citified soulful sounds that were being pioneered by local musicians and recorded by legendary Memphis labels like Sun, Stax and Hi.

As he approached adulthood in the 1960s, John Wilkins could be found playing in church, at parties, and at clubs. Like his father before him, Wilkins walked a similar musical line between the sacred and secular.
He played guitar on O.V. Wright's famous 1965 single "You're Gonna Make Me Cry" and later in the early 1970s recorded as a member of the M & N Gospel Singers for Style Wooten's Designer Records.
In the early 1980's, Wilkins life came full circle when he followed his father's call to ministry. He became pastor of Hunter's Chapel Church and ever since, Wilkins has led a congregation that includes generations of Tate county locals, as well as the late fife players Othar Turner and Napolian Strickland and their families, and numerous other regional parishioners and North Mississippi musicians.
In earlier times, legendary Hill Country bluesman Fred McDowell and his wife Annie Mae were members of Hunter's Chapel congregation. It was they who, in the mid 1960s first introduced the Hunter's Chapel Singers to the world on the outstanding album called Amazing Grace for Testament Records.
"You Can't Hurry God" is Reverend John Wilkins' debut full-length album. In it he showcases an individual sound that is regional and universal. This recording is a culmination of a lifetime spent learning from, and ministering to some of the luminaries of North Mississippi and Memphis. And, this sound can have only been made by a child of the North Mississippi Hill Country."

(Информация с сайта Big Legal Mess Records)

"Talk about old school.

On You Can’t Hurry God, Reverend John Wilkins takes us way back into the North Mississippi Hill Country for sacred music, guitar evangelist style.

The result is an album with the simple authenticity of an Alan Lomax field recording and the spicy soulfulness of a Willie Mitchell production. From the unhurried Toussaint McCall-esque title track to the rhythmic no-nonsense “Sinner’s Prayer,” You Can’t Hurry God is an invigorating journey along the blue highways of American music.

Wilkins, pastor of Hunter’s Chapel Church in Como, Mississippi, had a natural role model in his guitar-playing father, Robert. Robert Wilkins recorded country blues in the late 1920s and early 1930s, most famously the two-sided “Rolling Stone.” He was rediscovered by the Dick Spottswoods during the early part of the 1960s blues revival, and became a minister.

The younger Wilkins’ recording resume includes accompanying former gospel quartet singer O.V. Wright on his 1965 record, “You’re Gonna Make Me Cry,” and membership in the M&N Gospel Singers, a group that recorded for Style Wooten’s eponymously-titled Designer label during the 1970s.

But this is Wilkins’s first full-length solo album, and what a debut it is. He plays lead and rhythm guitar, and pulls out the bottleneck slide on “Prodigal Son,” a song originally recorded by his father as the blues “That’s No Way to Get Along.” The performance hearkens back to the original, hypnotic verses and all, while keeping one foot in the 21st century, thanks to the handiwork of producer Amos Harvey.

It’s hard not to sing along with the spritely congregational songs “On the Battlefield” and “I Want You to Help Me.” Here, Wilkins’ daughters assist on background vocals, providing the response to their father’s call. And most uncanny is the musical and vocal similarity to mild-mannered Washington Phillips on “Let the Redeemed Say So,” though Wilkins substitutes guitar for double-zither.

The album is best represented by “You Got to Move,” what Wilkins calls a “good old foot stomping, good old hand clapping song" that urges the listener to get ready because death doesn’t discriminate. The performance’s steady electric riff-propelled rhythm is what inspired the formation of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Led Zeppelin and sundry other blues bands.

You Can’t Hurry God is as authentic and unpretentious as the artist, and will appeal to trad gospel fans as well as blues and folk enthusiasts."

(Информация с блога theblackgospelblog.com)