[2007-09-04] Michelle Shocked "ToHeavenURide" live album (Mighty Sound/Megaforce/RED)

Linda · **Posted:** Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:34 pm

Amazon.com
Better late than never. These recently discovered tapes from the 2003 Telluride Bluegrass Festival find the eclectic Americana of Michelle Shocked in pure gospel mode. Backed by a vocal quartet, the "sacred steel" of Hot Rize's Nick Forster, and a killer band, Shocked does her best to channel her inner Mavis Staples, not only on Staple Singers classics such as "Wade in the Water" and "Uncloudy Day" but also on the Band's "The Weight" (which featured Staples as a guest performer in The Last Waltz). The audience joins the chorus on the frequent call-and-response of the material, which includes Shocked originals such as "Quality of Mercy" and "Good News" and the traditional "Study War No More" (more often titled "Down by the Riverside") along with the incantatory opener, "Strange Things Happening Every Day" (from Sister Rosetta Tharpe), and the sanctified reggae closer, "Can't Take My Joy." While some of Shocked's patter sounds like blackface minstrelsy (though she forthrightly acknowledges the issue of race) and "God Bless the Child" finds her way beyond her depth--as if she learned it from Blood, Sweat & Tears rather than Billie Holiday--the spirited performance makes a joyful noise. --Don McLeese

Product Description
Michelle Shocked comes full circle. Her debut album was a bootleg that caught the world off guard and introduced us to her. Unaware that ToHeavenURide was being recorded, it spotlights her where she’s always shone brightest live, on stage, in front of an audience. It was a special invitation to personal a gospel set at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and what a show it was! Sister Shocked shines throughout. Highlights include her cover of the Billie Holliday classic God Bless The Child, her cover of The Band’s The Weight and amazing renditions of soulful, yes spiritual Shocked originals such as Quality of Mercy which has never before appeared on a Michelle Shocked release (it was on the Grammy Award winning soundtrack, Dead Man Walking).

1. Introductions
2. Strange Things Happening
3. Weight
4. Quality of Mercy
5. God Bless the Child
6. Good News
7. Cancer Alley Rap
8. Wade in the Water
9. Uncloudy Day
10. Study War No More
11. Blessed
12. Pslam
13. Answered Prayer Rap
14. Can't Take My Joy

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000T2PRHK/?tag=imwan-20

Linda · **Posted:** Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:35 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2007

MICHELLE SHOCKED’S GOSPEL ROOTS INFORM NEW ALBUM, ToHEAVENuRIDE

Live set pays tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Staple Singers and Billie Holiday; includes traditional spirituals as well as several original new songs

LOS ANGELES – “Ask me about my religion,” writes Michelle Shocked in her “womanifesto” for her forthcoming album. “Of course, no one ever does.” But it’s all part of her long musical journey: “I was moved by the power of rock ‘n’ roll. And if you follow the trail from rock ‘n’ roll, it always leads you back to the blues, sweet soul music and finally to the churches and gospel music.” In Shocked’s case, it led to the West Angeles COGIC mass choir in the heart of South Central Los Angeles, where she now tries “living by the Good Book, and putting out a gospel record.”

The resulting album, titled (and spelled) ToHeavenURide, is scheduled for August 21, 2007 release on Mighty Sound through Megaforce/RED.

For this set, recorded live at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in June 2003, Grammy Award winner Shocked enlisted her Bay Area rhythm section, shanghaied Nick Forster (Hot Rize, etown) to play pedal steel and recruited the singing Dancys from New Greater Circle Mission Church in South L.A. for backing vocals and keyboards.

The marriage between the spirit of gospel music and the crisp Rocky Mountain air resulted in a rollicking performance. Shocked presents two songs by one of her greatest influences — Sister Rosetta Tharpe (“Strange Things Happening Every Day,” “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.”) Tharpe is called the “father — well, mother — of rockabilly” in the notes, and the songs are dedicated to her spirit. Also featured are “The Weight” by The Band and “Uncloudy Day” and “Wade in the Water” by the Staple Singers. Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” is given the Shocked treatment. Finally, “We’re Blessed” by Fred Hammond of the Detroit gospel group Commissioned, a modern gospel standard, is brought out of the churches.

Shocked also introduces includes four originals here (one is previously unreleased): “The Quality of Mercy” (originally written for the soundtrack of the film Dead Man Walking), “Good News” (commissioned by Greenpeace for the documentary Cancer Alley), “Psalm” (which prove the Psalms are a fertile source of the folk tradition) and “Can’t Take My Joy” (combining gospel and reggae traditions with a nod to Bob Marley).

Although the songs were recorded at the 2003 Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Shocked’s contract plainly stipulated “no recording.” However, for a festival DVD project recorded that year, her set happened to be digitally stored on a ProTools file. It never occurred to Shocked to ask of the existence of such a recording, but it did occur to her new manager. So, in keeping in the tradition of inadvertent “field recordings” which — in the case of her debut album Texas Campfire Tapes — was made on the sneak, ToHeavenURide is another great Michelle Shocked field recording that almost never saw the light of day.

“Fifteen years ago, I was moved by a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King: “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” One white girl attending a black church wasn’t going to change the world or anything, right?” writes Shocked in her ToHeavenURide manifesto, but she decided to “take the mountain to Mohammad.” “I was just going to check out a gospel choir, ya know? . . . Years later, on top of another mountain, the holy spirit erupted. And now here I am bringing it home to you.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways. Or at least that’s been my experience.”

Shocked embarks on a national tour in support of ToHeavenURide this Fall.

[2007-09-04] Michelle Shocked "ToHeavenURide" live album (Mighty Sound/Megaforce/RED)

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