The Cafe of the Gate of Salvation
COTGOS through Larrikin Records
Available on CD and cassette
Reviewed by Norm Dixon
The Cafe of the Gate of the Salvation, a huge a cappella choir (no less than 27 people are pictured on the CD cover!) which often performs for progressive causes, have at last released their debut album. It follows many months of scrimping and scrounging by choir members to pay for its production. Just one listen convinced me that those months of impatient anticipation were well worth it.
COTGOS are a group of people who have caught the black gospel music bug. Their album is inspired by the great tradition of black gospel music, a music that has expressed demands for African American liberation during slavery, during segregation following the civil war and during the civil rights movement of the '60s. Sections of the black churches to this day play an important role in radical black politics.
During slavery, church services provided slaves their only opportunity to gather freely. The biblical struggle of the oppressed Jewish people for "the promised land" struck a chord among enslaved Africans. This analogy was soon expressed in religious code within spirituals, African musical versions of Christian hymns. From these evolved black gospel. They were protest songs, a few were subversive calls to rebellion, most were laments of despair, but they all tended to galvanise the oppressed and give them strength and courage.
In early black gospel, lines like "steal away to Jesus", "crossing the River Jordan" or "a-goin' to Glory" could refer to a successful escape, "judgment day" to the end of slavery or a slave uprising; "Canaan", "the promised land", "Jerusalem", "Heaven" are at first references to Africa, then, for later generations of African Americans, the northern states, then later still, a code for full civil rights. The ubiquitous gospel call for "freedom" needs no explanation.
The Cafe of the Gate of Salvation formed in September 1986 as the result of a notice in Sydney's Badde Manors Cafe in Glebe appealing for singers interested in African American gospel.
Their initial material came from friends' record collections and Black gospel programs on public radio. Since then, COTGOS have written many original songs and led something of an urban revival in a cappella singing. They are well known for their willingness to perform at benefits for both the local and global communities. The choir is run democratically and any excess income they generate is distributed to local community arts and international solidarity projects. Part of these funds also help support African American gospel groups.
Throughout the album, COTGOS's enthusiasm, love and respect for ough. It needs little imagination when listening to the powerful yet gentle unison of this mass choir to understand how it can impart strength to an oppressed people. And this choir has soloists whose voices send tingles up and down your spine, especially Tony Backhouse and Tracey Greenburg.
Tracks that stand out for sheer beauty and intensity as well as their calls for compassion, tolerance and the need for Heaven on Earth are "Don't Wait (For Sunday)", "(I've Been Given) Two Wings" and "Still Some Heaven to Find". Judy Backhouse's solo on "Dream of Angels" is utterly beguiling while the choir produces a sound that is orchestral in quality.
Yet as excellent as this album is, COTGOS never quite reach the emotional abandon of the best of black gospel. It is a little too restrained, a little too Presbyterian. While a few numbers go close, there are no "church wreckers" here. That certainly is no reason to ignore this album, but it is a reason to supplement it with some of the real thing.