1976 The Soul Messengers “Sweet Land Of Mine” on Kingdom Production

The second of three great records from the Black Hebrew collective from Liberia via Detroit and finally Israel. This is sort of a comp of different lineups within the group, including the Soul Expressions, the Tonistics, the Angelettes, and Shavat. Super funky, heavy groove, tight instrumentation, spiritual-soulful worship jams with Thomas “Yehudah” Whitfield on git, John “Shevat” Boyd with the vocals, and Charles “Hezekiah” Blackwell on HEAVY bass. Amazingly, this one is pretty much just as good as the grail-ish first, which is fairly unusual in the annals of both vinyl and bands and labels and pressure and marketing and distro, and having to come up with new ideas a year after you released the debut record of all your ideas since you were fourteen. It’s heavy on the deep desert Praise N’ Testify, but never forgets the Detroit streets. Killer action. Oh yea.