Tipitina's Record Club Album Review
Sister Gertrude Morgan was born to a poor
farming family in Alabama in the year 1900. As a child, Sister Gertrude's love
for creating art and music flourished, as well as her love for the Baptist
Church.
In 1934, Sister Gertrude experienced the
first of several revelations that she'd have throughout her life where she was
commanded to abandon her secular youth in order to sing and preach the gospel. Three
years later, Sister Gertrude experienced another revelation to "go and preach,
and tell it to the world." This led her on a journey that would ultimately bring
her to New Orleans, where she opened an orphanage and morphed into a megaphone-wielding
street corner preacher.
While Sister Gertrude roamed the streets of New Orleans shouting her spirituals, painting remained an integral part of her life. During this period, she created unique pieces of artwork on non-traditional surfaces such as toilet rolls, pitchers, scrap wood, lampshades, and fans using tools such as acrylics, pens, lead pencils, watercolors, crayons, and felt tipped markers. After a fortunate encounter with E. Lorenz "Larry" Borenstein, a local art gallerist and co-founder of Preservation Hall, Sister Gertrude began displaying her art in Borenstein's gallery.
Enthralled by her skills as an artist, orator,
and performer, Borenstein hired a British sound engineer in 1970 to record
Sister Gertrude in a session that resulted in the album Let's Make a Record.
Driven by her percussive and hypnotic tambourine, Sister Gertrude's wholly
improvised tracks incorporate themes of optimism and hope, interpretations of
familiar hymns, as well as moments of humor. Resonating in its simplicity and sung
with the fierce certainty in which they're delivered, each track is captivating
in its own right.
With its availability plagued by limited
releases, Tipitina's Record Club has re-issued Let's Make a Record to
reintroduce the world to Sister Gertrude. The cover artwork is also an original
painting by Sister Gertrude, which in and of itself is worth the price. As
always, Tipitina's Record Club produced an extremely informative and enjoyable podcast
discussing Sister Gertrude and this album that is well worth listening to.
With this latest installment, Tipitina's
Record Club continues to release high quality recordings of NOLA-based
musicians that are not only treasures for those who know them but also serve as
great introductions of this important music to the next generation of
listeners.
