ScoopJohnD
01-18-2008, 11:35 PM
I like alot of music but this one is unbelieveable. Mike Farris - Salvation In Lights. He used to sing and play with Screaming Cheetah Wheelies, also played with Double Trouble. Battled chemical and alchohol dependecy, hit bottom, found God. But while it's about faith, it's doesn't bludgeon you over the head with it. It's New Orleans, Stax, Springsteen Seeger Sessions, spirituals all rolled into one. Horns, piano, gospel vocals, it's friggin AMAZING.
His website says it better than me.....
Salvation in Lights (INO Records) is a traveling tent-revival of an album, working its way up the banks of the Mississippi River from New Orleans through Memphis and onto points north. Farris' sophomore solo effort uses the musical language of spirituals, timeless stories of struggle, some of which are centuries-old slave spirituals, and soul to tell a uniquely redemptive story.
Farris plants his own roots deep, down to traditional songs like "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" and "Can't No Grave Hold My Body Down." "A Change Is Gonna Come" and "I'll Take You There" come from a soul movement that identified with struggle and the ongoing search for transcendence and peace to songs that are turn-of-the-century New Orleans Gospel.
Original songs like "Selah! Selah!" and "The Lonely Road" evoke late-period Stax soul and Willie Mitchell's horn-drenched Hi Records funk. Some bear the influence of Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, and others find their groove somewhere between the "oom-pah" of a Crescent City funeral band and the "boom-chick" of a Johnny Cash railroad.
The reviews sum it up
It's impossible to listen to this album and not be moved. No matter what your religious beliefs, there's something so soulful and primal about Mike Farris' delivery that it's hard not to be shaken to the core."
- Billboard
"...he even nails a version of Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" that stands as one of the most driven takes on the song since the original" - Blues Revue
"Farris surrounds himself with a heavenly soundtrack that slides effortlessly between Stax soul, New Orleans gospel and shuffling Southern blues, all of it punctuated with Farris' smoldering vocals and clear message of redemption."
- Harp
"Like the Seeger Sessions Springsteen, Farris bends standards his way - transforming 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' into grooving, horn-filled R&B; taking 'Can't No Grave Hold My Body Down' to the swamp; and adding his own words to 'I'll Take You There.' He alternates these with originals like "Devil Don't Sleep" and "I'm Gonna Get There" that are as strong and impassioned as his vocals - at times he recalls the late blue-eyed-soul great Eddie Hinton. The result is a set that does indeed take you there - stirring both body and spirit and reaffirming the transcendent power of gospel."
- The Philadelphia Inquirer
I can't say enough about this record. It is SO GOOD. Go to his website http://www.mikefarrismusic.net I think you can hear some there or I'm sure you can hear it at Amazon etc. I think it's amazing and hopefully you all will as well.
His website says it better than me.....
Salvation in Lights (INO Records) is a traveling tent-revival of an album, working its way up the banks of the Mississippi River from New Orleans through Memphis and onto points north. Farris' sophomore solo effort uses the musical language of spirituals, timeless stories of struggle, some of which are centuries-old slave spirituals, and soul to tell a uniquely redemptive story.
Farris plants his own roots deep, down to traditional songs like "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" and "Can't No Grave Hold My Body Down." "A Change Is Gonna Come" and "I'll Take You There" come from a soul movement that identified with struggle and the ongoing search for transcendence and peace to songs that are turn-of-the-century New Orleans Gospel.
Original songs like "Selah! Selah!" and "The Lonely Road" evoke late-period Stax soul and Willie Mitchell's horn-drenched Hi Records funk. Some bear the influence of Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, and others find their groove somewhere between the "oom-pah" of a Crescent City funeral band and the "boom-chick" of a Johnny Cash railroad.
The reviews sum it up
It's impossible to listen to this album and not be moved. No matter what your religious beliefs, there's something so soulful and primal about Mike Farris' delivery that it's hard not to be shaken to the core."
- Billboard
"...he even nails a version of Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" that stands as one of the most driven takes on the song since the original" - Blues Revue
"Farris surrounds himself with a heavenly soundtrack that slides effortlessly between Stax soul, New Orleans gospel and shuffling Southern blues, all of it punctuated with Farris' smoldering vocals and clear message of redemption."
- Harp
"Like the Seeger Sessions Springsteen, Farris bends standards his way - transforming 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' into grooving, horn-filled R&B; taking 'Can't No Grave Hold My Body Down' to the swamp; and adding his own words to 'I'll Take You There.' He alternates these with originals like "Devil Don't Sleep" and "I'm Gonna Get There" that are as strong and impassioned as his vocals - at times he recalls the late blue-eyed-soul great Eddie Hinton. The result is a set that does indeed take you there - stirring both body and spirit and reaffirming the transcendent power of gospel."
- The Philadelphia Inquirer
I can't say enough about this record. It is SO GOOD. Go to his website http://www.mikefarrismusic.net I think you can hear some there or I'm sure you can hear it at Amazon etc. I think it's amazing and hopefully you all will as well.