The Harlem Gospel Travelers Rhapsody Midnight Blue Vinyl Edition

Midnight Blue Vinyl.With their new album 'Rhapsody,' the extraordinary vocalists Ifedayo Gatling, DennisBailey, and George Marage are able to fully explore the entire range of music thatinfluenced them. The follow-up to their acclaimed 2021 release 'Look Up!', the record is adive into a lesser-known but hugelyimportant era in the evolution of gospel music.Starting in the mid-1960s, local gospel groups and singers began incorporating elementsof popular soul and funk styles and in 2006, Chicago-based reissue label Numero Groupreleased Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal. HGT's longtime friend and mentor Eli"Paperboy Reed" approached the group with the idea of digging through the Numerocatalog and recording some of the gospel funk material, reinterpreted in their own way_from the high-energy, old-school soul of "God's Been Good to Me" to the hip-hopinflected "Get Involved."The Harlem Gospel Travelers story began when Gatling and Marage met while studyingunder Reed's tutelage. The group put out their debut LP, 'He's On Time', to rave reviewsin 2019, earning them high profile fans like Elton John and landing them festival slotseverywhere from Pilgrimage to Telluride Jazz. Originally a quartet, they brought in Baileyand reconfigured as a trio prior to recording Look Up!, their first album of all originalmaterial.At a moment when the world is reconsidering the concepts of genre and category andwho's allowed to participate in which traditions, HGT are squarely on the cultural pulse."We always found it difficult to stay in this one lane of what people think gospel issupposed to be," says Gatling. "This record allowed us to hear people that wereinnovators in their own time, pushing how gospel music sounded, and now we've createdthis project that is message-wise gospel, but the feeling and the sound can be whateveryou want it to be."