[Cover photo credit to Rosie Cohe]
The Harlem Gospel Travelers have released new album Rhapsody, featuring vocalists Ifedayo, Dennis Bailey, and George Marage. Their goal for the album was to pay homage to the “entire range of music that influenced them.” The follow-up to their 2021 release Look Up!, the record also focuses on “a lesser-known but hugely important era in the evolution of gospel music.”
Starting in the mid-1960s, local gospel groups and singers began incorporating elements of popular Soul and Funk styles, and in 2006, Chicago-based reissue label Numero Group released Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal.
Friend and mentor Eli Paperboy Reed approached The Harlem Gospel Travelers with the idea of focusing on the Numero catalog and recording some of the Gospel-Funk material.
The Harlem Gospel Travelers story began when Gatling and Marage met while studying under Reed’s tutelage. The group put out their debut LP, He’s On Time in 2019. Originally a quartet, they brought in Bailey and reconfigured as a trio prior to recording Look Up!, their first album of all original material.
Ifedayo comments on the new album:
We always found it difficult to stay in this one lane of what people think gospel is supposed to be. This record allowed us to hear people that were innovators in their own time, pushing how gospel music sounded, and now we’ve created this project that is message-wise gospel, but the feeling and the sound can be whatever you want it to be.
He continues about identity and inclusiveness:
There are a whole bunch of queer people in the traditional church, but the openness hasn’t been there, people are very hush-hush about it. We want to represent people being free and sharing love and understanding with each other. That’s something that I see in our show all the time, people are inspired by us to go and spread love.
It’s great to be a representation of a positive force and gospel music that is accepting of all people, to allow people to see themselves, see full freedom of expression—and how I express myself is completely different from how George or Dennis expresses himself. To have three different representations of Black queer people who happen to sing gospel music is something that, to my knowledge, has not been done before.
THE HARLEM GOSPEL TRAVELERS 2024 TOUR DATES:
SUN 8 SEPTEMBER – The Atlantis – Washington, DC [w/ Durand Jones]
THU 12 SEPTEMBER – The Sultan Room – Brooklyn, NY [Album Release Show!]
SAT 21 SEPTEMBER – Freshgrass MASS MoCA – North Adams, MA
THU 26 SEPTEMBER – Moss Arts Center – Blacksburg, VA
SAT 28 SEPTEMBER – City Winery Loft – Philadelphia, PA
[additional dates to be announced soon]
