Reviewed by Dave Brassington

I must admit that I found this a difficult CD to review. Howard and Vestal had a very long career of over 50 years in Southern gospel music with The Happy Goodman Family and are considered giants in the field and were well loved by their many fans. However I only began to take notice of them on some of the Gaither Homecoming videos when they were very well advanced in years. Personally I have never found their vocals very inspiring. This 12 track CD collection gives no indication as to when these recordings were made, however I would guess that they would be some of the later recordings from this now departed duo. The Goodman's use small group backings including some steel guitar on a couple of tracks to give a country feel at times. There are some really good songs here - "Won't It Be Wonderful", "I Believe He Is Coming Back" and "I Wouldn't Take Nothin' For My Journey Now" which apparently was their theme song. The late J D Sumner joins in with "When God's Chariot Comes" and there is a version of the country classic "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" which had never been released before, but I thought was rather disappointing with it's jazzy background. No doubt fans of this very well loved duo will be glad to add this to their collection but I'm afraid it didn't really do it for me.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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