Gospel.

This recent gospel compilation from Swedish producer and collector Per Notini is a three disc, 84 track set focused exclusively on a capella singing without any instrumental accompaniment. Featuring many well-known quartets such as the Fairfield Four and Soul Stirrers as well as lesser known artists, the set traces stylistic changes over a thirty year period, concluding in 1969 before the ‘contemporary’ gospel era. These groups created some of the most inventive and progressive African American vocal music of the post-war period, which had a profound effect on later R&B and soul artists, not to mention artists across all other genres.

With its enduring message of comfort and inspiration, gospel music’s origins are rooted in the tragedy of African-American slavery. From the earthy recordings of the evangelist street performers to the polished sound of the jubilee quartets, this Rough Guide features many of the trailblazing artists who paved the way for what has become a global phenomenon.

Craft Recordings honors the music of The Gospel Truth Records, a subsidiary of Stax Records, with the first-ever complete collection of all 34 singles issued by the imprint between 1972 and 1974. The compilation features in-depth liner notes by Jared Boyd, a Memphis-based journalist and NPR radio host, who captured new interviews with Stax Records executive Al Bell, trailblazing gospel artist Rance Allen, and Mary Peak Patterson, who helped establish the label. The Gospel Truth stands as an essential part of Stax’s enduring legacy and marks a landmark moment in gospel music history.

This wonderful four-disc, 105-track box of postwar Afro-American gospel releases from the 1940s and 1950s was compiled by record collector and gospel historian Opal Louis Nations, and it perfectly captures what was surely a golden age for black gospel. Gospel as we now know it emerged in the South in the early '30s, an outgrowth of the right to assemble and the advent of gospel songwriters like Thomas A. Dorsey (who had sung previously in the secular arena as Georgia Tom), who brought the blues to church, tossed in some ragtime piano rhythms, and almost single-handedly created the genre to the point that his compositions were simply known as "Dorseys.

Johnny Cash released more than half a dozen gospel albums during his career, beginning with 1959's Hymns by Johnny Cash, and he scattered gospel tunes throughout his other works as well. A deeply religious man, he sang his songs of praise with as much, or perhaps more, conviction as he did his secular material – even the most skeptical non-believer would have to appreciate the honesty and soul of Cash's gospel recordings. Cash: Ultimate Gospel collects 24 of his best, most drawn from his Columbia catalog with a pair ("I Was There When It Happened" and "Belshazzar") emanating from Cash's early Sun Records period, and two ("Oh Come, Angel Band" and "Children Go Where I Send Thee") originally on the Cachet label.