Michelle Shocked – ToHeavenUride

Friends and fans of Michelle Shocked have watched her go from being a punk rocker (before she ever made a record) to a folk singer to a pop artist to a folk deconstructionist to a funkateer to a singer-songwriter, and on and on. And now she’s released a gospel record.

Recorded at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival back in 2003, this is a document of a single concert featuring heavy collaborations with the singing Dancy family of the New Greater Circle Mission Church in south Los Angeles, with a guest appearance by Nick Forster of Hot Rize on steel guitar. Very clearly, if you were there, you probably could not have resisted having a great time. Audience interaction seems to have been the focus; as with any gospel concert, the idea is to spread the spirit among the people.

Listening at home, however, is not quite as joyous an experience. The singing is generally great; Shocked has long since proven she can handle virtually any form of southern American song, and her inclusion of folk spirituals, gospel quartets and funk bravado find her as comfortable as she’s been with anything else. Her four originals are strong, too. The playing is very good, as Shocked’s regular rhythm section glides and slides the beats behind her into sultry, sinuous, frequently irresistible grooves.

But some of the grooves go on too long, Shocked steps aside too often in favor of what was probably a live communal ecstasy provided by the Dancys, and spoken words come around more often than one would care to hear. Though this is a solid document, it’s not a record that begs to be heard more than once or twice.