Sam Butler Raises Hell With Gospel

Their sound and their message is heavenly, but the walls of the church couldn’t contain them. For over 70 years, The Five Blind Boys’ voices have been reverberating off the walls of bigger and bigger venues from the small churches they got their start in to stadiums round the world. As they got bigger,so did their parameters. The group took on secular songs, but only if they could be reformatted to keep the their gospel ideals and sound intact.

The focus of the group has always been on the vocals, their combined voices delivering the power and majesty of a pipe organ. But there’s always been another component in the mix that often goes unheralded. In the Blind Boys as well as the Dixie Hummingbirds and crossover pioneers The Five Royales, guitar was a main ingredient in the sound. Loman Pauling for the Five Royales and Howard Carroll for the ‘Birds were innovators in gospel as well as R&B. Pauling had the earliest crossover success, composing ’57s “Dedicated To the One I Love,” covered by the Shirelles and the Mamas and the Papas, and “Think,” covered by James Brown. Carroll’s style too incorporated blues and jazz into gospel, and secular artists including Bobby Bland and Hank Ballard took tips on phrasing, delivery and arranging directly from the group.

Sam Butler was the Blind Boys’ guitarist from1972 until 1994. Like Pauling and Carroll, he souped up gospel with sounds formerly found in juke joints or smoky cabarets, bringing an earthy feel to celestial matters. But unlike the Birds and the Royales, who both fully crossed the line into secular, the Blind Boys always stayed on the gospel side, until ’02’s Grammy win for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album for Spirit of the Century pushed the boundaries with some secular tinkering. Former leader Clarence Fountain wasn’t comfortable with it, especially grafting Eric Burdon and the Animals’”House of the Rising Sun” melody onto “Amazing Grace.” I thought it was stupid.,” he said. “We’re not supposed to mess with tunes like “Amazing Grace. But we had got lucky and come out on the sinning end because the Lord was on our side.”

The band also took back The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time,” which Fountain said the Boys put out first. “They can just take tunes and steal ‘em, so we stole some of their stuff, the same thing they were doing to us. Nobody wasn’t complaining about it, so we just did it.”

Butler goes a bit farther on his solo release, taking on songs by Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Eric Clapton, Curtis Mayfield,Van Morrison, Tom Waits and even Nick Cave. Producer Brian Brinkerhoff said he wanted to show off “a bluesy, rootsy take” on spiritual songs by secular artists.

But Butler clings stubbornly to his gospel roots on most of the cuts, and the results are mesmerizing. Taking on Clapton’s “Presence of the Lord,” Butler reworks it, reigning it back to a more sedate, worshipful pace, underscored with Roosevelt Collier’s sacred pedal steel. Vocally, he resembles Curtis Mayfield, mellow gospel trembling on the verge of crossover soul.

Butler drops down into a lower register, growling out the lyrics to Tom Waits’ “Gospel Train” over a menacing, plodding guitar line stalking the devil with a hunk of smoking steel. Its a far cry from Waits’ frenetic version, the singer howling like a man possessed, trying to shed his demons by crushing them with gospel iron.

It’s hard to out-messiah Brooce, but Butler manages to pull it off on Springsteen’s “Heaven’s Wall.”The Boss just grinds away at ya, but Butler pecks away with impassioned soul worthy of a revival preacher working the crowd for tithes. He takes a psychedelic guitar break to reach out to some of the young ‘uns in the congregation before going back to Mayfield vocalizations for more soul.

The most bizarre conversion is the Bee Gees “The Lord,” from their 1970 TV movie and album Cucumber Castle. Sounding like an English takeoff on a Hee-Haw skit, the disco duo of Barry and Maurice Gibb warble their way through a faux country gospel spoof.

But Butler takes this stuff seriously, marching along proudly with his Jesus banner fluttering in the breeze. “You can believe what you wanna,” he sings, “but I know what I’m gonna do/ gonna believe in the Lord,” punctuating it with some wiggly slide you can stomp and holler to.

The most captivating performance is Butler’s gorgeous take on Van Morrison’s “Full Force Gale.” De-horned and churchified with the help of Collier’s pedal steel, Butler’s soaring vocal melds soul greats Sam and Dave’s Sam Moore and Mayfield for an ethereal take fit for any domination’s hymnbook.

You can take the Blind Boys out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the Boys’ former guitarist. As Fountian used to tell audiences before every show, “I didn’t come here looking for Jesus, I brought him with me.” Amen, brother. Now please pass the Butler.