I stayed up way too late last night watching the end of the Georgia-Alabama game, so needless to say I'm moving at about the speed of a 16 RPM record (as if I have ever seen one) trying to play on a 45 RPM turntable. Thankfully, I gave myself an extra 30 minutes of sleep this morning. With rain in the forecast, Cooper was spared his usual walk, and I was spared the guilt that comes with being the human half of that arrangement.
As I sit here with my second cup of coffee, listening to the rain drumming on a roof that will be replaced in just over a week, it feels like the perfect morning for an old gospel record. Some things wear out with age, while others seem to grow richer, deeper, and more meaningful with every passing year. Today's record definitely falls into that second category.
I've decided this week is going to lean heavily into indie and alternative sounds. Today's selection certainly qualifies. It's a rare gospel LP from Fayetteville, North Carolina, and since it wasn't released on a major label, I'm happily claiming it for the indie camp. Labels may matter to the industry, but great music answers to a higher authority.
This record found its way into my collection the same way many of my favorite discoveries do: through a combination of patience, persistence, and what I can only describe as divine crate-digging intervention.
A few years ago, I met a non record collector who had purchased at an auction the inventory from a radio station in Smithfield, North Carolina. The LPs were almost entirely white and Black gospel records, weird audio sound and commercial ditty lps, with a little country sprinkled in for seasoning. The 6,000 or so 45s were about 99% country and white gospel. When I first saw the collection, the owner wanted a mountain of cash for it. Not just any mountain, either. We are talking Titanic-size money, the kind of money that had me pricing the collection with my wallet while he was pricing it with his imagination.
I looked through the 45s, bought a few things I liked, and gently suggested that his expectations might be floating in the same waters as the Titanic. We parted on friendly terms.
A few months later, the phone rang.
Suddenly, that Titanic had hit the iceberg.
He offered me the entire collection for 99% less than his original asking price. He wanted it gone, and I was more than willing to help him accomplish that mission. So home it came.
Only later, while digging through the albums, did I discover some absolute gospel gems that I had completely overlooked during my first visit. Funny how that works. Sometimes the treasures are hidden in plain sight, waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves. There may be a sermon in there somewhere.
So settle in and enjoy 18-plus minutes from Rev. Otis McMillan and The Exciting Quadralaires, an extraordinarily obscure North Carolina jewel that, through a little patience and perhaps a touch of providence, eventually found its way into my collection
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