fRoots, October 2001
Spencer Bohren brings peace and calm to
Carry The Word, an album of gospel songs and tunes played and sung with clarity and precision. Superbly recorded, Spencer's various guitars ring with sustained tones that vibrate the heart. On his own "Wings Of An Angel", his impeccable slide playing dovetails with his (presumably overdubbed) acoustic guitar, hovering around the spaces between notes. Blind Lemon Jefferson's "One Kind Favour" has never had such a spacious treatment benefiting from atmospheric electric lap steel with its low underlying moan set against the long sustain of the sliding treble notes--sheer bliss! And vocally there are no false notes as Spencer's worldly voice sincerely delivers the gospel lyrics. He states in the booklet that having spent decades mining the roots of American music it was inevitable that someday he would dig into the fertile soil of gospel. With
Carry The Word Spencer Bohren has ploughed a furrow that has produced a fine album of quite beautiful music.
-- Dave Peabody © fRoots Magazine all rights reserved
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home
