Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Rev. Utah Smith

Rev. Utah Smith and wings...
Pre-flight warm up.

Wrecking the house in Houston.

Utah Smith brings eyesight to the blind.

          Rare 45 pressing of his first disc, originally on Regis (78 only)




 Utah Smith was born in 1906 in Cedar Grove, Louisiana,  in the countryside outside of Shreveport. He was schooled to the third grade, then took a job as a water boy in the cotton fields before graduating to picking cotton. He later worked in a chicken plant plucking and cleaning chickens, a job he was fired from.  In 1923, he took up the calling and became an evangelist in the Church of God In Christ, usually just called the Holiness or Sanctified Church. He was  married in 1929, set up a home in Shreveport, but was on the road by 1925 where he'd spend most of the next forty years.
  Smith had taken up harmonica as a teen, soon switching to a steel guitar, and finally an electric guitar. He also had noticed that he, as many were later to testify, had healing powers, and an ability to tell jokes. Early on he was billed as  "God's Funny Boy" and was heard preaching the Devil's funeral and attempting to move trees which of course didn't budge as well as "laying on the hands" healing the sick and maimed.  By 1938 he was using his electric guitar in his revival meetings,  his daughter for one claiming he was the "first black man to own one", and if he was not the first, he was certainly among them. Folks would travel for miles just to see the thing.
  On the gospel highway, Reverend or sometimes Elder Utah Smith proved to be a popular attraction and he criss crossed America for four decades, his photographs appeared in not only the major black publications but also Newsweek, the New York Times, in folk music publications and he was recorded and broadcast for the BBC in 1947 as part of a audio documentary called "The Story Of New Orleans Music".
He would make three commercial recordings, which would be issued on at least six different labels, three of which were versions of his theme song-- I Want Two Wings. First came a 78 RPM for Regis, recorded and first issued in 1944, then re-issued on Manor (1949), Arco (1950) and on 45 rpm on Kay-Ron (1958): I Want Two Wings b/w  God's Mighty Hand. The second disc came in 1947 and was self issued on his own Two Winged Temple label out of New Orleans-- (I Got) Two Wings b/w Glory To Jesus I'm Free, this is the rarest of his commercial discs, it was pressed as a 78 and later on 45.
In 1953 he cut a session for Checker in Chicago, two songs were released-- the third rendition of Two Wings and on the flip side Take A Trip, which is a re-working of the old gospel standard Gospel Ship.
All these discs feature his crude, open tuned guitar prominently, and he is backed by a small female choir on all of them. There also exists at least two other versions of Two Wings he recorded that exist on single copy acetates.
   Rev. Utah Smith ran his own Church in New Orleans, the aforementioned Two Winged Temple (the first location was torn down to build the Calliope projects, the second was on Octavia off Magazine), but was best known for holding revival meetings, many of which were covered in the pages of the Louisiana Weekly newspaper.  He was fairly famous in and around New Orleans, but traveled from coast to coast, catching the attention of composer and New York Tribune music critic Virgil Thomson while appearing in Newark, N.J. in '41.  Thomson approved of what he saw calling him "an interesting musical manifestation". Indeed. The same year he appeared at one of NYC's Museum Of Modern Art's "Coffee Concerts".  In the 1950's he toured with gospel stars like Mahalia Jackson, the Bells Of Joy and Brother Joe May, the Thunderbolt Of The Mid-West (for a time May's pianist was Esquerita, could Esquerita and Utah Smith have met?), knocked 'em dead in Atlanta, Memphis and Dallas, and generally made a big impression on everyone who saw him,  sometimes wearing gigantic white paper wings and always blasting away on a Gibson electric guitar.
  The gospel highway is rough on the body though, and Smith suffered from diabetes (he was said to eat twenty biscuits in one sitting) and glaucoma, and in 1961 he retired to the Octavia Street Temple's basement where he died on January 24, 1965, blind and no longer able to play his guitar, it was said  he'd taken to drink and fell down the stairs.        
   The life and times Of Rev. Utah Smith were fascinating, and for a more detailed look I refer you to Lynn Abbott's biography-- I Got Two Wings (Incidents and Anecdotes Of The To Winged Preacher and Electric Guitar Evangelist Elder Utah Smith) (Case Quarter, 2008) which also comes with a CD of his complete recordings. Amen.

25 comments:

jneilnyc said...

Thanks for this one. I've been on a bit of a vintage gospel kick myself, and I'm always looking for pointers to the real-deal guitar-slinging evangelists.

The Subliminal Kid said...

Great post on Utah Smith, Hound. He may not have had the widest repertoire (on record anyway), but he sure could rip that guitar!

ana-b said...

Thanks for this one Hound. Good to know about Abbott's biography as well.

@jneilnyc...check out the collection of Rev. Charlie Jackson's rare Booker label recordings titled "God's Got It". Jackson was another N.O. based preacher in the same mold as Smith. Great stuff. I think it's still available.

Chris Morris said...

A very welcome post. I first heard Rev. Smith on the Document CD he shares with L.A. guitar preacher Rev. Lonnie Farris. That one's a beauty, too.

jneilnyc said...

Yeah, I've seen that (but haven't picked it up yet). What I really look for, to be a little more specific, is guitar gospel with the rhythm well forward, that deep one-chord-of-ecstasy stuff like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLfOjQRRL5g

I've occasionally stumbled across things on public access in NYC that came close (minus the dancing). I assume they were shot in Bronx churches or somthing...

Anonymous said...

The Lonnie Farris "hawaiian" guitar stuff is great!

The Hound said...

"@jneilnyc...check out the collection of Rev. Charlie Jackson's rare Booker label recordings titled "God's Got It". Jackson was another N.O. based preacher in the same mold as Smith. Great stuff. I think it's still available."

It's available (vinyl only) from Crypt Records: http://www.cryptrecords.com/
Booker was the same label that issued Sis. Albertha Harris Lewis' amazing Mean Old Jews Who Crucify My Lord.

The Subliminal Kid said...

There's a good collection called God's Mighty Hand: Gospel Evangelists on Gospel Heritage (now out of print but probably findable) that has lots of guitarists, steel and otherwise, like Utah Smith, Rev. A. Johnson, Willie Eason, O. M. Terrell, Henry Green, Willie Mae Williams, etc. Worth looking for.

Morgan Young said...

My first exposure to the winged one. Thanks.

Flip-Side

Anonymous said...

Great post! Anything much known on Reverend A Johnson who did God Don't Like It for Glory (a Rockin subsidary)? -Barry

The Hound said...

" Anything much known on Reverend A Johnson who did God Don't Like It for Glory (a Rockin subsidary)? "

I wrote a little about him several years ago:
http://thehoundblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/guitar-evanglists-singing-preachers-and.html

He was from Miami. God Don't Like it was also issued on DeLuxe in a slightly different version.

Joe Bonomo said...

I can second the worth of God's Got It.

Thanks for this, Hound, I'm gonna order that bio.

Anonymous said...

" Rev. Anderson Johnson was from Miami, Florida and issued his own discs on his Glory label."

The way I understand it is Glory was the gospel subsidary of Henry Stone's Rockin Records. I would then assume. the Deluxe issues are straight reissues of the Glory issues as were the Hookers, Charms and other Rockin masters that were reissued on Deluxe.. Never heard the Deluxes but I have 2 of the Glory 45's. -Barry

ana-b said...

"guitar gospel with the rhythm well forward, that deep one-chord-of-ecstasy stuff"

You mean like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Udwf3rpNM0&feature=BFa&list=AVGxdCwVVULXdrmGwMtXMDlYdJlLCspoxE&lf=list_related

The Hound said...

" I would then assume. the Deluxe issues are straight reissues of the Glory issues as were the Hookers, Charms and other Rockin masters that were reissued on Deluxe.."

Actually, I think they're the same but the Deluxe seems a bit speeded up. I think there were at least five Glory discs--The other a-sides were Death In The Morning, Let That Liar Pass, Do You Call That Religion, and The Lord Will Make A Way. The other version of God Don't Like It was on Angel, another Fla. label, which I think precided the Glory releases.

The Hound said...

BTW: photos of and paintings by Rev. Anderson Johnson can be found here: http://dulltooldimbulb.blogspot.com/2009/03/rev-anderson-johnson-artist-singer.html

Duncanmusic said...

I love it when you post stuff like this and I see all the usual suspects show up and chime in with more info. Found the Rev myself about two years ago and also love this old time religion gospel blues and shouting raving guitar ... was you who turned me on to Rev Junie Cheeks also for which I'm much obliged. About 25 years ago I was living in the middle of 'The Promised LAnd ' off North Goodman St in Rochester, surrounded by real and store front churches on nearly every corner. I woke up one Sunday afternoon (after playing a long Saturday Night gig + a BarBQue Chicken dinner late night) and heard guitar and singing out my window. I got up, got dressed and went out looking. Two blocks away, sitting between two hedges near the side walk was an older black lady singing accompanied by an older black gentleman playing a guitar (with a pencil and string capo) plugged into the raunchiest amp I had ever heard (that was long before I discovered Pat Hale and mismatched impedance amp torture). I stood there transfixed for an hour listening and left ten bucks in their cup. It took me years to find music that resembled what I heard that morning...it was somewhere between Rev. Utah and Abner Jay and a hint of Brother Claude Ely. What a musical journey it's been. Thanks for YOUR help.

Anonymous said...

Rev. Utah Smith's Chess two sider is now repro'd on a 45. In the 70s I used to go down on Sundays to whatever Los Angeles storefront church and hear Rev. Lonnie Farris play. Even (at his request) I once got up in the pulpit and testified. Still have a cassette tape of a live recording I made of his services. Unforgettable experiences.

Anonymous said...

Forgot to identify myself. It's Dick Blackburn on that last post.

Anonymous said...

The other version of Rev A Johnson's God Don't Like It (Angel I assume... 78 only) reportedly blows away the Glory version. I believe it was George Paulus who told me that. I've never heard or seen it. -Barry

The Hound said...

"The other version of Rev A Johnson's God Don't Like It (Angel I assume... 78 only) reportedly blows away the Glory version. I believe it was George Paulus who told me that. I've never heard or seen it. -Barry"

Check your e-mail to hear it,....

Mihaleez said...

Excellent stuff Hound as usual. I’m really enjoying the conversations/comments on almost every single gospel related post of yours, even though all these make feel like a layman! Many thanks. BTW, did you ever think of writing a book for these guitar Evangelists? I believe your friends at KICKS books would accept your essays without a holler and who knows, you maybe have in the future and a perfume with your own name on it! ;-)
Happy holidays to everyone!

Gramercy7 said...

Excellent post told me much more than I ever knew about Rev. Smith. Bless you, Brother Hound!

Anonymous said...

This as cool as a pack of unfiltered Kools!
Hound strikes again.

Anonymous said...

thanks hounddog man..

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