These are the seminal '60s recordings of contemporary gospel's best-selling group, before the group's more recent rapprochements with r&b, soul, and disco. (One can sort of see that evolution here--on one of the later cuts, "Nobody Can Turn Me Around," the group sings eerily like Curtis Mayfield's Impressions circa "Get On Up.")
Questions of genre purity notwithstanding, it remains true that there are few sounds on earth more fervent than the Mighty Clouds of Joy at full throttle, which they are here in a program that includes impassioned renderings of gospel chestnuts ("A Friend in Jesus") and an old spiritual ("Swing Low, Sweet Chariot").