Description
Release Date: 2023
Label: Southland Records
Track List
Disc: 1
- I’m Troubled in Mind
- Tis’ the Old Ship of Zion
- Lord Until I Reach My Home
- Old Time Religion
- Who Built the Ark
- Farewell, Farewell
- I Know I’d Like to Read
- The Ol’ Sheep Done Know the Road
- Oh the Rocks and the Mountains
- A Wheel in a Wheel
- In the Kingdom
- Live Humble
- Ride on Jesus
- Oh Freedom
- De Band of Gideon
- Jerusalem Morn
- We’re Almost Home
- Oh Wasn’t That a Wide River
- Oh Yes! Oh Yes!
- Git on Board, Little Children
- Roll Jordon Roll
- Somebody Got Lost in the Storm
- This May Be My Last Time
- My Way’s Cloudy
- You Better Mind
- City Called Heaven
- I Am Seekin’ for a City
Disc: 2
- What Kind of Shoes You Gwine to Wear
- Who’ll Jine De Union
- Sweet Canaan Happy Land
- I Got a Home in That Rock
- In Dat Great Gittin’ up Morning
- They Look Like Men of War
- Talkin’ to De Lord
- The Lord’s Prayer
- Said He Would Calm the Ocean
- Let Your Light Shine Round De World
- Hallelu
- Roll De Old Chariot Along
- Good News, Chariots Coming
- Peter on the Sea
- I’m A-Rollin’
- There’s a Meeting Here Tonight
- The Heaven Doors Gwine to Close
- Walk Together Children
- Somebody’s Knocking at Your Door
- Where Shall I Be
- Go Ring Dem Bells
- Free Grace, I’m New Born Again
- I Heard the Preaching of the Elders
- Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep
- My Brethren Don’t You Get Weary
- I Know De Lord, He Laid His Hands on Me
- Ain’t Gwine to Study War No More
- In Bright Mansions Above
Notes
The Deep River Boys were one of America’s most iconic Black vocal quartets. Founded in Virginia in 1936, the “Deeps” career peaked in the 1940s though they continued on through 1980. The Deep River Boys recorded several hundred songs, but never had a gold record. Still, their career led them to tour five continents, including five trips to the Far East. They toured 16 African cities under the auspices of the U.S. State Department’s cultural exchange program. They made 32 consecutive annual visits to Europe including playing the London Palladium five years in a row. They sang to England’s Queen Elizabeth and at the White House to President Eisenhower. In their heyday, they were stars of stage, radio, film and TV.
The Deep River Boys sang in a wide variety of music styles, including pop, rhythm & blues, show tunes, jazz, blues and rock & roll. Yet if there’s one thing the Deep River Boys are remembered for, it’s their respect for their musical roots. Like other groups that formed in Black colleges during the 1930s. the Deeps began by singing old African American spirituals. Most genres of American music, including jazz, blues, rhythm & blues and rock & roll trace their roots to spirituals, sung first by slaves in the cotton fields of the American South. Throughout their career, the Deep River Boys continued to preserve the legacy of spirituals in their authentic form and dialect, resisting the temptation to modernize them. The songs on this CD were recorded by the Deep River Boys for the Lang-Worth radio transcription company in the 1940s.
