Prestige Records
Pure Religion
About This Album
This 1957 release has been issued throughout the world under a bevy of names. These recordings are worth mentioning for both their sacred and secular nature. Equally as interesting is the wide range of performance styles that the Rev. Gary Davis incorporates throughout this long player -- the first full-length disc to do so. Among them are the rarely displayed preachin' blues of "Bad Company," "Runnin' to the Judgement," and "Pure Religion." Notable are the spoken introductions or talkin' blues recitation techniques, as well as the more obvious and overtly religious themes. Davis took his commitment to the Lord seriously and had become an ordained minister in the summer of 1937. His vehemence and compulsion to spread the word is a blatant motif that works on several strata. In the musical parables of "Seven Sisters" -- which isn't a voodoo reference -- and "Right Now," Davis recalls the fatality of not rebuking sin with lyrics like "Don't 'cha put off today for tomorrow/for tomorrow may never be/Let the Saviour bless yo' soul, right now." This collection also includes a few equally heady instrumentals -- most notably "Cocaine Blues," "Buck Dance," and "Hesitation Blues.
Track List

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