Reviewed by Tony May

With the elevation to the great gospel choir in the sky of some of black gospel's great names lately, Hawkins must be ranked highly amongst current living legends. Having said which, this set features the rank and file of the Edwin Hawkins music and arts seminar, so I guess they are sorta students of the genre. The man himself is cast as producer, wrote a couple of fairly impressive songs and proves a still-effective lead vocalist on his sole outing "He's God". So we look elsewhere for the real bread-and-butter of this set, recorded live at a Californian church. The opening track sets the scene of quite conventional black gospel, funky, soulful vocalist with a massed choir bursting with vitality, thumping rhythm section and stabbing brass. As usual the lyrics are extremely basic, why, oh why can't we have some creative writing for a change? So, there's a measure of boredom hanging around I'm afraid.

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