Dragnet For Jesus

Cleveland's Wynona Carr was a sadly underrated master of metaphor in gospel songwriting. Her best-known release during her 1949-54 heyday was "The Ball Game," an extended metaphor with Satan as the pitcher, Solomon as the umpire, and so on. She had several other similarly clever songs, including "Dragnet for Jesus" (inspired by the TV show) and "15 Rounds for Jesus," that were never released at the time. It's thought that Specialty Records felt the songs were a little too clever and not straightforwardly devotional enough. There may also have been concern about the effect a jump-blues feel would have on a conservative record-buying public, although contemporary records by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and songs by Mahalia Jackson scarcely a decade later were equally jazzy. This 26-song collection covers a lot of stylistic ground: on "I'm a Pilgrim Traveler" (modeled on the blues song "St. James Infirmary") and an "Our Father" recorded at the Rev. C.L. Franklin's Bethel Baptist Church, she shows off a full-voiced sanctified style with impressive power and expression. Turning the tables on R&B artists who were not above rewriting gospel numbers with secular lyrics, she borrows back Wynonie Harris's "Good Rockin' Tonight" and rewrites it as "I Heard the News (Jesus Is Coming Again)." --Bob Bannister