SHIRLEY CAESAR - AFTER 40 YEARS … STILL SWEEPING THROUGH THE CITY
Shirley Caesar’s 40th album in as many years is resounding proof of her uncontested reign as the first lady of gospel music. With “complacency” nowhere to be found in her vocabulary, she revisits a dozen classic songs that don’t so much ignore modernity as redefine it with her own timeless touch and taste. Caesar digs deeply into her singular catalog, from such genre-defining classics as “Hold My Mule” to lesser-known but no less vital treasures (”Faded Rose” and a moving medley of “Peter, Don’t Be Afraid,” “Nobody but You, Lord” and “Teach Me, Master” among them). Romping, roaring and righteous as the day she first set foot in a recording studio, Caesar continues to set a standard against which great singers will be judged for decades to come.
