Swan Silvertones

• Love Lifted Me/My Rock [Specialty, 1991] A-
• Amen Amen Amen: The Essential Collection [Rock Beat/Archive Alive, 2015] A

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Love Lifted Me/My Rock [Specialty, 1991]
Especially after ace arranger Paul Owens signed on midway through their 1951-55 Specialty stint, the Swan Silvertones relied on a formula. But so did Motown. The problem with this one is the way it was slicked up melodramatically just afterward, during the group's Vee-Jay peak. The center is always Claude Jeter, direct forebear of Al Green and a more crucial gospel falsetto than Rebert Harris himself. But at Specialty Jeter is in a sense the straight man, and for us secular sinners that's good. What happens around him is the formula: the star holding steady as hard-shouting Solomon Womack and Robert Crenshaw wild out. Anchored by drums and piano, rough sound subsumes sweet song as the Swan Silvertones rock the house. A-

Amen Amen Amen: The Essential Collection [Rock Beat/Archive Alive, 2015]
Seven 1952-53 tracks originally on Specialty, where baritone shouter Solomon Womack was always there to rough things up, followed by 19 1957-63s from Vee-Jay, where Claude Jeter's sweet, mellow, transported tenor, which inspired countless singers who couldn't match it even when named Al Green, dominates as if he's buried all sinful shows of egotism 20,000 leagues down in the earth to which we will all return. There'll always be a sense in which I prefer the Soul Stirrers' somewhat mellower Rebert Harris simply because he's less awesome and otherworldly. But there's a reason heaven-seeking Christians and God-denying sinners preach Jeter to the unenlightened with equal fervor. So for the final hour here, chances are you'll be inspired to try and understand exactly what that reason is. A