Steeped in tradition, revered by the masses, honored by their peers, The Mighty Clouds of Joy are truly American musical icons. At the Revival represents the quartet music style the Clouds have built their 50 year career on. Great songs, sung with power & passion to deliver a message of good news. Pure. Soul. Music. Steeped in tradition, revered by the masses, honored by their peers,The Mighty Clouds of Joy are truly American musical icons. The 3-time Grammy winners, led by longtime leader & original member Joe Ligon, release At The Revival, with the raw musical pureness that title represents. Primarily produced by R&B afi cionado Raphael Saadiq (a huge Clouds fan), At The Revival represents the quartet music style the Clouds have built their 50 year career on. Great songs, sung with power & passion to deliver a message of good news.

Contemporary gospel’s preeminent group, the Mighty Clouds of Joy carried the torch for the traditional quartet vocal style throughout an era dominated by solo acts and choirs; pioneering a distinctively funky sound which over time gained grudging acceptance even among purists, they pushed spiritual music in new and unexpected directions, even scoring a major disco hit. The Mighty Clouds of Joy were formed in Los Angeles during the mid-’50s by schoolmates Joe Ligon and Johnny Martin; while still in their teens, the original group which also included brothers Ermant and Elmo Franklin, Leon Polk and Richard Wallace made their recorded debut in 1960 with “Steal Away to Jesus,” cut for the Peacock label. Their debut LP Family Circle arrived a year later. In the years that followed, the Mighty Clouds earned a reputation among gospel’s greatest showmen; one of the first groups to incorporate choreographed moves into their act, their nimble footwork and bright, color-coordinated outfits earned them the sobriquet “The Temptations of Gospel.” More importantly, they were the first group to add bass, drums and keyboards to the standard quartet accompaniment of solo guitar, resulting in a sound which horrified traditionalists but appealed to younger listeners so much so, in fact, that the Mighty Clouds became the first gospel act ever to appear on television’s Soul Train, where they performed their disco smash “Mighty High.” Their crossover success continued with opening slots for secular pop stars including Marvin Gaye, the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon, whom the group backed during a month-long stint at Madison Square Garden. While lineup changes plagued the Mighty Clouds throughout their career, they remained active through the 1990s; in addition to co-founders Ligon and Wallace, their latter-day incarnation also included Michael McCowin, Wilbert Williams, Johnny Valentine and Ron Staples.

Shearwater was formed by two bandmembers of Austin, TX’s Okkervil River. Okkervil’s singer and guitarist, Will Sheff, and back-up vocalist and accordion/keyboard player, Jonathan Meiburg formed Shearwater so they could write softer, more folk-influenced music. Band members today include Jonathan Meiburg, Thor Harris, Kim Burke, Jordan Geiger, and Kevin Schneider.

To date, Shearwater has released six full-length albums, ‘The Dissolving Room’, ‘Everybody Makes Mistakes’, ‘Winged Life’, ‘Palo Santo’, ‘Rook’ and ‘The Golden Archipelago’ as well as an EP entitled Thieves and a split album with Okkervil River entitled Sham Wedding/Hoax Funeral.

Beginning at some point in 2005, Will Sheff lessened his role in the band. Jonathan Meiburg wrote the entirety of Palo Santo. As a biologist, Jonathan has a particular perspective. The songs of Palo Santo were partly written at the Galápagos Islands in the footsteps of Charles Darwin. And he evolves with beautiful ‘pictures’ of nature at Rook.

“The Golden Archipelago”is the third album in a triptych of mindblowingly beautiful, dense and ambitious excursions about man’s impact on the natural world from Austin’s SHEARWATER. This time singer/songwriter Jonathan Meiburg turns his attention to life on islands – a world of lushness and austerity, silence and sudden cataclysms. From rising sea levels to displaced populations, Meiburg travels from the Falklands to Madgascar, from the Bikini Atoll to the Tierra Del Fuego. The music matches the grandeur and melancholy of its subject matter. This is an ALBUMalbum. The first 10,000 CDs come packaged with a 50-page perfect-bound book of dossier of records, photos, regulations, and images on islands, displaced peoples, immigration records and more.

Members: Jonathan Meiburg, Thor Harris, Kimberly Burke, Kevin Schneider, Jordan Geiger

Members: Terry Brock, John Roth, Mike Brignardello, David L. Huff

Here goes the track list for January 26′th of latest released and unreleased Singles out there. This is what you should expect to be played at the moment on your local christian radio.

Members: Josh Brown, Zach Simms, Joe Pangallo, Chris Pangallo

Nineties rock gave Josh Brown a muse, a voice and stardom. Then it nearly killed him. Now his band is giving the sounds that first inspired him new life on Day of Fire’s third album LOSING ALL, a powerful hard-rock record that explores the real meaning of rebirth.

Brown grew up in Jackson, Tennessee, where he picked up songwriting and a serious drug habit at age 15. Two years later he became the frontman for Full Devil Jacket, and at 22 he scored the big-time record deal. “I thought I was Axl Rose for a short time there,” he laughs. The band toured with Creed and Nickelback and made a splash at Woodstock ’99, but on his way to major success, Brown had a major crash: a heroin overdose in an Orlando bathroom put his career on hold while he rehabbed and rethought his life. Continue Reading…