Album of the Week: Bless This House

Here are the archives and the playlist and the goals update and so on.

A note on that playlist: I have heard your concerns ("your" meaning Jamie's and Neil Young's), and am currently in the process of moving all of the playlists over to another streaming site for the time being, since Spotify pays artists the worst of the big three and also supports some pretty bad antivaxx bullshit. Give me a little time to make the switch though! Maybe a few weeks? I'll make sure to note it here when I find the time to complete the platform jump.

Anyways, here's the new album.

WEEK 157 — January 30-February 5, 2022

What we're listening to this week (Joe's pick):

ALBUM: Bless This House

ARTIST: Mahalia Jackson

(NOTE: I don't know where else to put this, but it looks like some platforms list the artist for this album as "Mahalia Jackson and the Falls-Jones Ensemble." Mildred Falls was the pianist, and Ralph Jones was the percussionist. In the 1950s, it was more prevalent that the backing bands would be placed on the artist line. This is definitely a Mahalia Jackson album though, no discredit to her backing musicians.)

RELEASED: Sometime in 1956, specific date unknown

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Gospel, a genre that Record Club has never even come close to touching, as far as I can remember

WHY JOE PICKED IT: If the genre is gospel—a genre of music that can be traced back to the 1600s—is the music this week, then the first question is "Why Mahalia Jackson specifically?" The answer to that question is simple: I watched Summer of Soul over the summer, was about eight beers deep during Mahalia's performance, was mightily impressed, and, of course, thought immediately that I should try to find a way to get her into Record Club.

The second question is "Why Bless This House specifically?" That answer is unfortunately more boring. I definitely wanted to do something early in her career, since we've never done an album from the 1950s, and this was gonna be our best chance. I was originally going to pick The World's Greatest Gospel Singer, which is the only album in Mahalia Jackson's discography that has its own Wikipedia page, but for reasons unknown, the album is not on streaming services. So I chose the one immediately after that, after ensuring that all you Tidalers and Applers would have no issues.

TRACKLIST:

1. Let the Church Roll On
2. God Knows the Reason Why
3. Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go
4. By His Word
5. Trouble with the World
6. Bless This House
7. It Don't Cost Very Much
8. Summertime / Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child
9. Just a Little While to Stay Here
10. Take My Hand, Precious Lord
11. Down by the Riverside
12. The Lord's Prayer

LENGTH: 44:25

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: YouTube

READING SOME SHIT: Wow—this editorial from last week claims that Mahalia Jackson was responsible for MLK Jr.'s "I have a dream" section of his speech. So there's that! In that same vein, you can read a short bio of Mahalia Jackson on MyBlackHistory.net to bring us into February. I mean, looking into all this info, I feel like I'm doing a really bad underselling Mahalia Jackson here. She was an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement! Why didn't I learn about her in school?!

WATCHING SOME SHIT: There was apparently a Mahalia Jackson biopic just last year. It was on Lifetime, but still! Danielle Brooks (Taystee from Orange Is the New Black) plays Mahalia! If you wanna watch it, turn on your ad blockers, and then click HERE.

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: This is by far the oldest album we've ever done for Record Club, released a full seven years before Mongo Santamaria put out Watermelon Man! in 1963. Jackson and Santamaria are the only Record Club artists that were in the aforementioned documentary Summer of Soul (so far!). Watch that shit if you haven't already! (Also: It looks like the Summer of Soul soundtrack was literally just released two days ago. Mahalia Jackson is of course on there. I would recommend starting with the film, and then if you like it, using the soundtrack as a jumping-off point? But you do you.)

Happy listening, fam! Have a great week!