Specialty Records’ Gospel Truth Shines in Five Albums

Specialty Records, the L.A. label started in the mid-’40s by Art Rupe, is best known today as the launching pad for such rock pioneers as Little Richard, Sam Cooke and Lloyd Price.

The company, however, had an equally distinguished gospel roster--a point documented in five retrospective albums just released by Fantasy Records, which recently purchased the Specialty catalogue. Play the opening number on “Greatest Gospel Gems” and you’ll be hooked.

The first selection on the 65-minute overview of Specialty’s gospel offerings is the Soul Stirrers’ version of “The Last Mile of the Way.” The prized element is the voice of Cooke, who was a member of the Stirrers before he started his pop career in 1957 with the dreamy “You Send Me.”

The Soul Stirrers were founded in the mid-’30s and were already widely acclaimed by the time they signed with Speciality in 1950. When lead singer R.H. Harris retired the same year, the teen-age Cooke was brought in to replace him. On “Last Mile,” you can hear in his vocal the gentle, soulful purity that would eventually make him one of the most influential singers of the modern pop era.

Besides a second Cooke-Stirrers’ number, the “Gems” sampler features tracks by such heralded gospel outfits as the Original Five Blind Boys of Alabama, the Swan Silvertones, Dorothy Love Coates & the Original Gospel Harmonettes and the Pilgrim Travelers. Each group is featured on separate CDs just released by Fantasy.

Another noteworthy “Gems” serving is the Sister Wynona Carr selection that is found on Rhino Records’ “Baseball’s Greatest Hits” CD.

Titled “The Ball Game,” the tune--credited to Carr--is a sermon in the language of baseball. In the song, salvation is waiting at home plate, but you’ve got make it safely around the bases.

The first base is temptation

You know the second base is sin

The third base is tribulation

If you pass, you can make it in .

In the Bins: Columbia Records has released volume two of its budget “Hitchhiker” series, which showcases various crossover artists on the label’s Nashville roster. The entries this time range from Mary-Chapin Carpenter’s Cajun-flavored “Down at the Twist and Shout” and the Chet Atkins-Mark Knopfler pairing on “Poor Boy Blues” to Don Henry’s sly “Cadillac Avenue.” . . . Ten of LaVern Baker’s best-known recordings from the ‘50s, including “Tweedlee Dee” and “I Cried a Tear,” are available together in a CD for the first time as part of Warner Special Products’ “Masters of the Blues” series. Baker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year.