![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/elder_jack_ward.jpg\")
Growing up as a suburban white kid, my preconceptions regarding gospel music were fairly well-formed. I wasn\u2019t especially receptive to the messages conveyed in the music, and \u2013 on the rare occasions when I encountered it \u2013 I found the music stiff and lacking in passion.<\/p>\n
Of course I wasn\u2019t hearing music coming out of an African American tradition. At its best, that stuff is on fire! As 20th<\/sup> century music historians could tell you, the genre that we call soul is really a secularized version of gospel. The real gospel music has tremendous overlap with blues, soul, R&B and rock. At its best it\u2019s full of the passion often found lacking in its based-on-European-traditions caucasian counterpart.<\/p>\n Speaking of \u201cat its best,\u201d Elder Jack Ward\u2019s Already Made<\/i> has all of the qualities that make for a successful album. Commitment to the material, inspired vocal work, tremendous ensemble musicianship: they\u2019re all in ample supply on Already Made<\/i>.<\/p>\n Yes, the subject material is the Big Guy, but experiencing this music is really no different than listening to your favorite soul artist sing about his or her love interest. The backing vocals have that robed-chorus feel, and songs like \u201cShout Trouble is Over\u201d are hypnotic; who knew so much could be conveyed with a single chord?<\/p>\n The rhythm section features guitarist Will Sexton and ace drummer George Sluppick, names familiar to in-the-know fans of current-day Memphis soul. Elder Ward himself has an impressive back story, and he applies his natural gift for lyric writing in this collection of ten original compositions. Highly, highly recommended, and I wouldn\u2019t be surprised to be hearing about this record come Grammy time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Growing up as a suburban white kid, my preconceptions regarding gospel music were fairly well-formed. I wasn\u2019t especially receptive to the messages conveyed in the music, and \u2013 on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,49,65],"tags":[4659,4658],"class_list":["post-21765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gospel","category-new-release","category-review","tag-bible-and-tire","tag-elder-jack-ward","cat-35-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21767,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21765\/revisions\/21767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}