Blues & Spirituals / Hymn Hustler

This double album release provides a window into the artistry of the Rev. in the early aughts (2000s). These albums were first handmade by the Rev and burned and printed from his own computer. They have now been remastered by Grammy award winning David Glasser and restored to a new found glory with a beautifully redesigned package that captures the amazing artwork. Here for the first time these albums have been mass produced on CD and made available digitally in their full fantastic forms. The Reverend's songwriting and spirituals will soothe your sorrows and his country blues and soul-folk grooves will heal your hurting.

Blues & Spirituals, released in April 2001 as the Rev’s first official full-length album, was primarily recorded at M&I studios in NYC, where the Rev was working as a studio assistant. He helped to record albums with jazz legends like Houston Person, Mark Murphy, and Ernie Andrews and received free studio time for himself in return. With just guitar, vocals and a few harmonica overdubs the Rev shows us a man in search of his true troubadour voice through covering traditional spirituals, jazz standards, rock classics, and creating some heartfelt expressions of original blue-eyed soul.

Hymn Hustler provides the next chapter in the Rev’s discography, released in February of 2003. The album includes some accomplished slide guitar, traditional blues tracks, more mature self-penned songs, a bunch of grooving band accompaniment, and psychedelic sound effects from the Rev’s home studio at the time. Filling in the gaps in the back catalogue some of these tracks have been overdubbed and added to other releases, but its fascinating to hear the album as it was originally imagined, and also in the context of the evolution from one album to the next here on this latest double album release.

Back when tigers used to smoke the Rev regularly haunted the front room of Tobacco Road in New York City with a solo set of music almost every Sunday afternoon at 4:20pm. Here during these unsung days he was able to hone his craft and performed many of the songs that appear on the albums, ‘Blues & Spirituals’ and, ‘Hymn Hustler.” Like a cross between a sacred psychedelic clown and a serious storefront preacher, the Rev stared down mortality and courted redemption with rhythm and melody. Sitting on his amplifier in the corner of that hippie hangout, his acoustic guitar and voice echoed blessings for that internationally known little counterculture musical mecca in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. Tuning into the timeless with just a song sometimes the spirit would descend and it was as if the Rev and his audience would levitate right off the earth.

However, the Rev has chosen to reincarnate, bringing with him the first two albums of his recording career, remastered, digitized and humanized as a double album. Blues & Spirituals from 2001 and Hymn Hustler from 2003 combine to display two sides of Freakchild's early musical personas.

On Blues & Spirituals, he offers an acoustic set with just guitar and harmonica, a troubadour blending traditional songs with his own soulful creations. The liner notes are not as traditional, quoting from Søren Kierkegaard, known as the first existentialist philosopher. The first track is the traditional Jesus On the Mainline, an eloquent blues-gospel song, beautifully picked and sung. Lose these Blues is a gently swung original: “I feel like a lost feather off an angel’s wing / so Lord, won’t you please, help me, lose these blues.” Mo' Betta Blues dips into Greek mythology for a modern ode to love: “Gonna let the love open the door, gonna make it mo’ betta, gotta make the blues mo’ betta.” Blues for No One is a swinging jazz instrumental, followed by a gorgeous rendition of another traditional gospel song, True Religion.

The Rev gives equally reverential treatment to Billie Holiday's classic God Bless the Child. The original Rollin' On is filled with folk overtones and harp filigrees around its contemplative thoughts: “Now you try to let it go, that love that is no longer, / No comfort, only reassurance, at the absence of God.” Cheeba-Cheeba is a whimsical sampling of lyrics from Schooly D, Bo Diddley, Bob Dylan and the 23rd Psalm – and somehow makes perfect sense. Yer Blues is a slightly softer musical version of the John Lennon track from The Beatles White Album, while keeping its dark theme: “Yes I'm lonely, want to die.” Willin' is a lovely take on a gentle folk song from Lowell George.

The Hymn Hustler tracks reveal a tougher side to the Rev's music, with a little help from his friends. There's some evil slide guitar, traditional blues, more mature original writing and trippy psychedelia sound from the windmills of the Rev's mind. It begins with the starkly beautiful Delta blues classic, Rollin' and Tumblin, now traditional, but first recorded by Hambone Willie Newbern in 1929. The Rev fires up a wicked slide for his fiery version. He continues with In My Time of Dying, a traditional gospel song. The very original Supersubconscious Mind follows, a deeply introspective journey: “Just wading in the waters, of my Supersubconcious smoked mind / Careful not to disturb the universe, or let the devils waste my time.” Strange Magic is another inner mystery tour with psychedelic leanings: “Now you’re probably mellowing down easy / but it seems I’m still haunted by that strange magic” Hawaiian Cowboy Lost in NYC is a unique original that pulls together gorgeous lap steel and traffic noise that plays out its title. Search My Heart is an expertly picked and fiercely sung cover of this Rev. Gary Davis gospel song.

A Day Late and $ Short is an upbeat shuffle to every bluesman's lament: “Well, I went down to the doctor, they said I was a day late / So, I went to get a drink, but the cash wouldn’t resonate.” WW3 Blues is another montage filled with mysterious voices, persistent percussion and lyrics from Dylan, Peter Tosh and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Don't Miss Nothing is a bluesy folk original with stunning guitar behind lyrics that speak of a blood red moon and boiling seas but evolve to an earthier complaint: “Ya don’t miss your water ‘til the well runs dry, Ya I say, don’t miss nothing ‘til it’s gone. / Missed my baby, miss her all night long.” The closer is Memento Mori, a Latin phrase meaning "remember you must die," a polyglot of sounds and snippets that conclude the album in a style best described as pure Freakchild.

The good Reverend, for all of his other-worldliness, is a righteous singer, songwriter and guitarist. With Blues & Spirituals and Hymn Hustler, you can hear the Rev explore his mind and expand your own.

Reverend Freakchild is an individual for whom theologians and psychologists do not have an adequate category, but the real bluesman, far from being a simple entertainer, provides a similar social and cultural role as the preacher, the way finder, the fire keeper, or the shaman (spiritual healer). With the art of song the true player of the blues pierces the veil between life and death, past and future, and the seen and unseen. Furthermore, rather than merely being an intermediary between realms and making meaning of this life, the one who works with the consciousness of the blues is an agent of a co-created causal nexus or a supernatural superimposed omnipotent prime mover proving purpose. The sage of the blues then often transcends that created conceptual appearance emptiness and fulfills the role of psychopomp; guiding the audience through not only a descent through death, but a witness to the worlds of lived experience; terrestrial sorrows and the phoenix of healing formless joys. Paradoxically, it is this chthonic journey into the shadow self that creates the possibility of an enantiodromia: the psycho-spiritual emergence of its opposite; a transformative transcendent realization, an awareness of a larger perspective; a connection to an interdependent reality and the ever elusive vision of the promised land of peace.