Live at Abbey Road: by London Community Gospel Choir - Kingsway Music KM 2427, CD, MC, DVD - Mixed Media - Sound Recording Review

New Internationalist, Oct, 2003 by Vanessa Baird

London's interdenominational Community Gospel Choir is more familiar than most people realize. On stage with Tina Turner, Puff Daddy or Elton John? They've been there. The ones that make Madonna sound better? It's them.

In Britain, at least, gospel music was the great gift of Caribbean immigrants who, arriving after 1945, found themselves if not actively then certainly tacitly excluded from the Church of England's more sedate form of worship. In consequence, the new black churches forged a parallel path that was, more often than not, powered by an exuberant choral singing that affirmed faith and positivity. It was much needed. Set up in 1982 by Bazil Meade, Delroy Powell, Lawrence Johnson and John Francis (Live at Abbey Road is the choir's 21st birthday present to itself), the LCGC was created in the wake of racial riots. The choir's history can quietly boast the development of soul stars like Carleen Anderson and Sam Moore, both of whom return to this album to pay their dues.

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That the soul orchestral style of Live at Abbey Road sounds so familiar is a measure of the LCGC's extraordinary success.

Swelling harmonies and melismatic soloists are standard features of much current chart-oriented R'n'B and the sound is beautifully showcased in the paradise-or-bust versions of 'Blessed be Your Name' or 'Some Day'. This album may not turn the atheist's gaze heavenwards, but it's music wonderful enough to make anyone believe in the community of the human voice.

Rating *** LG

www.Icgc.org.uk