The Joy! The Joy!

I first read about this CD, amazingly enough, in the Wall Street Journal and had to smile at the thought of all those financial market folks rushing out to buy gospel music. Regardless of the source of the info, it was spot on. I'd sit in churches 24/7/365 if it consisted of nothing more than this glorious music. There's a variety of styles, tambourine dancing to burdened ballads, and in every one you'll find mercy, pain, revival, power and -- most of all -- joy in the songs and the evocative voices that sing them. To hear a young Sam Cooke, so many years gone, in the Soul Stirrers, it's just a gift. Most -- not Mavis fortunately -- of these singers are certainly dust now, but here they've got a deserved resurrection. Yes, I've laid on the superlatives, but this is one CD that deserves it. It is soul nourishment of the highest order and easily one of my favorites of the year thus far.

Non-liner notes an insult to the music

I'm going to be less forgiving about the non-liner notes. The music is close to impeccable but the explanation of having no liner notes because "the brain will write its own liner notes" is an absolute insult to the buyer/listener and, more significantly, to the artists and the music on this disc. To suggest that this music, as moving as it is, does not deserve any serious scholarship is indefensible. You may as well burn someone else's copy because there's absolutely no information to be gleaned from the packaging.

Weak Packaging Mars Fine Collection

This is a very frustrating CD. I've read some great reviews of this CD but when I purchased it I was disappointed to find that it has extremely weak packaging. There is no information about the performers and there is no information as to when the various recordings were made (I like the year tagging in my iTunes to be fairly accurate). There is 1 page of sparse notes by co-producer Joel Dorn explaining why he thinks liner notes are not needed (something about the music being so good the liner notes are not needed). Baloney!