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Various Artists
SACRED STEEL INSTRUMENTALS
(Arhoolie)
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If an obscure form of Pentecostal religious music can have stars, then this swinging, singing, house-rocking compilation is packed with them. There’s Aubrey Ghent, whose lap steel cries angelically under his deft picking and frailing. Sonny Treadway and Willie Eason, who are cornerstones of the genre and wildmen of the instrument, with a knack for making it holler and swoop. The Campbell Brothers, a family band who blend their steels with conventional six-strings to create blessed harmonies. And Glenn Lee, whose beatific ode to the Maker "Call Him by His Name" — with grunting wah-wah and weeping trills — is really a greasy blues. The biggest luminary, though, is Robert Randolph, the twentysomething pedal-steeler from New Jersey who went secular a few years back to win acclaim in the jam world and spent this past summer touring with Eric Clapton. Randolph’s rubbery tones and initially careful phrasing on the traditional "Without God" quickly give way to high-speed runs across his instrument’s 13 strings with his picking hand, honking Nashville chords, and a stomping finale where he uses the beat of the kick and snare drums as a trampoline, bouncing out new melodic ideas every few measures. Until 1995, when Arhoolie began releasing recordings of this style, "sacred steel" music had been performed only in churches for nearly 70 years. Now, for fans of great guitar, albums like this have made the genre the very definition of a joyful noise unto the Lord.
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