Listening to the Sensational Nightingales was like taking a trip back to a time when this great group was on perpetual tour and we were buying their wax records and spinning the grooves off them! This was a time when we felt that the vocalists were products of a spiritual commitment, and their songs, though entertaining were reverent! If you want to experience a spiritual uplifting, this is a record that can take you there. I am glad to have found this CD at Amazon.
January 11, 2007 |  | Indispensable music with one track missing |  |
I bought this album on vinyl back in the fifties and I still love this music. The group lives up to its name, and the lead singer is truly extraordinary. On this cd reissue, however, the original, up-tempo "To the End", has been replaced by a completely different slow tune. Admirers of this wonderful music owe it to themselves to hunt this title down online and marvel at the powerful rhythmn, the complex hand-clapping, and the inspired shouting. You won't hear anything else like it. I would buy the cd again just to get this track.
October 2, 2006Rev. Julius Cheeks gets excited about his love for Jesus and proclaims to the mountaintops on this great (and super inexpensive) group of songs. His background singers are very sedate, but he rocks, creating a tension of opposites that is very moving. He is one of the pioneers of the hard-gospel style, along with Rev. Ruben Wilingham (Swanee Quintet), Silas Steele (Spirit of Memphis), Leroy Barnes (Detoiters) and if you know & love these groups, you are gonna love this CD.
July 16, 2006 | | If you like soulful singing, get this CD! | |
Rev. Julius Cheeks makes every one of these gospel songs and hymns a new creation with his wailing and soulful singing. The background singers punctuate and accentuate the funky rhythms. If you like old time hard gospel quartets, you'll LOVE this. It's one of my favorite CDs.
April 20, 2002This disc contains some of the scariest cheesegrater-throated screaming you will hear this side of Napalm Death, courtesy of the great Rev. Julius Cheeks. This is set alongside some contrastingly laidback gospel grooves that chug along, leaving room for lycanthropic interjections like "one for the father, one for the son, one more time for the holy ghost". There are some catchy toons too, like "The Storm is Passing" and "Standing in the Judgement", that you won't be able to get out of your head, but the main attraction is Cheeks' microphone-shattering howling on tracks like "Burying Ground" and "A Closer Walk with Thee". Not too pricey either - just shove it in your trolley now and get some hard religion into ya.
March 19, 2002More reviews at Amazon.com ...
(7 reviews)