Reverend Charlie Jackson: God's Got It: The Legendary Booker And Jackson Singles

"When I couldn't speak nothin', I let the guitar do it," Reverend Charlie Jackson speak-sings in a preacher's cadence about three minutes into "Testimony Of Rev. Charlie Jackson," which offers graphic detail of a debilitating stroke that left him unable to talk, and his doctors unsure that he would ever recover. Jackson then illustrates the point with a long, slow, elegant guitar solo that finishes out the side. The 1973 single was one of only a handful of recordings Jackson made in the '70s after logging more than a decade as a singing preacher. Collected on CD here for the first time after decades of existing only as collectors' items, they capture a talent as raw and unusual as any put to record. Jackson grew up the son of poor Mississippi farmers and learned to play the blues, much to the chagrin of his pious mother. Eventually, he gave up on the music, but it never left him. The song that lends this collection its title finds Jackson working the same riff to hypnotic effect, cycling through problems and their sole solution with a fervor righteous enough to move a hardened atheist: Need money? Need friends? Need help battling Satan? God's got it. Recorded between 1970 and 1978, mostly for the tiny label Rev. Robert Booker ran from his New Orleans home, these songs each pack a soul-wrenching drama into the length of a pop single. "Wrapped Up And Tangled Up In Jesus" begins with Jackson fishing and wishing God would snare him securely on His line, then explodes into a celebration when that wish comes true. "Something To Think About" uses traditional blues and gospel imagery to mourn the loss of civil-rights leaders with a vow to keep fighting. Apart from a few tracks on which Jackson backs other singers, most of these songs feature little more than his guitar and vocals, with some in-the-distance handclaps, backing vocals, and the occasional unprompted affirmation. They need little more. Following in the footsteps of mentor Utah Smith, who performed in churches wearing wings and tromping up and down the aisles to the accompaniment of a blaring guitar, Jackson found a natural home in the intimate confines of the church, and these low-fidelity recordings come close to capturing that sound. Since the '70s, Jackson recorded one proper studio album in 1997, and then, in 2002, suffered a second stroke. But, as collection producer Kevin Nutt notes in his liner notes, Jackson continues to perform, letting his guitar say what he sometimes can't.