How do you categorize the music of Michelle Shocked?
She’s been a campfire singer. A political activist. A punk rocker. A banjo-strummin’ Arkansas traveler.
And now? A gospel singer to rattle all your stained glass windows.
ToHeavenURide is Shocked’s new album, a live performance that weaves together the energy and stylistic restlessness of her previous works. And it proves to be a significant step in what her fans have long understood to be (yes, I’m going to say it) a spiritual journey.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” she says in the album’s liner notes (which she labels a “womanifesto.”) “I was moved by the power of rock ‘n’ roll. And if you follow the trail from rock ‘n’ roll, it always leads you back to the blues, sweet soul music and finally to the churches and gospel music.”
Singing with the West Angeles COGIC mass choir in the heart of South Central Los Angeles, she unwittingly ended up with a spirited live album. I say “unwittingly” because, as with her debut record The Texas Campfire Tapes, she didn’t know she was being recorded during their performance at the 2003 Telluride Bluegrass Festival (where recording was forbidden). It’s a good thing — at least for those of us who weren’t in attendance — that somebody broke the rules.
It’s also thrilling to realize that this performance took place before a diverse crowd, not in front of a pack of believers. Kinda like Christ’s most famous gigs.
“Fifteen years ago,” she says, “I was moved by a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King: ‘It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, the same hour when many are standing to sing ‘In Christ There Is No East Nor West.’ I decided to mix my metaphors and take the mountain to Mohammad. One white girl attending a black church wasn’t going to change the world or anything, right? I was just going to check out a gospel choir, ya know — and what’s not to love about a gospel choir? Ten years later, on top of another mountain, the Holy Spirit erupted. And now here I am, bringing it home to you.”
Backed by the Bay Area rhythm section of Nick Forster (pedal steel player), and powerful voices of the Dancys from the New Greater Circle Mission Church in South L.A., she stirs up 11 soulful songs, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Strange Things Happening Every Day” and “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.” They perform The Band’s “The Weight” and Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.” And it’s all so spontaneous and joyful that you just wish you could have been there. (If there’s a downside to the record, it’s that you sometimes wish she’d just let the power of the music keep flowing, uninterrupted by her the mini-sermons she tosses into the mix.)
From her own catalog, she includes ‚ÄúThe Quality of Mercy,‚Äù which appeared earlier on the soundtrack for Dead Man Walking, ‚ÄúGood News‚Äù from the documentary Cancer Alley, and my favorite track on the album: a resonant “reading” of “Psalm” from Deep Natural.
Shocked is beloved for singing the chorus ‚ÄúThe secret to a long life is knowing when it‚Äôs time to go.‚Äù But this album is about something else. ToHeavenURide is about the secret to a meaningful life. And it makes me hope her music and career have a long life ahead of them. If your spirits need lifting, this one will launch them all the way to heaven’s front porch.
