Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Five Blind Boys of Alabama

I'm A Rolling

c. 1972-1973 · Up Front Records UPF 134 · Stereo · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Up Front Records
Catalogue number	UPF 134
Year	c. 1972-1973
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Gospel - Black Gospel Quartet
Musicians	Archie Brownlee (lead vocal), Lawrence Abrams (vocal), Joseph Watson (vocal), J.T. Clinkscales (bass vocal), Roscoe Robinson (vocal) - credited on this jacket as the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, though the performers are the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  UPF-134-A 3-1170
Side B:  UPF-134-B 3-1170

Condition

Cover: VG+
Vinyl: VG+

Variant chronology

c. 1973-1976 - Up Front stock white label, pink print, UPF 134  <- this copy

This Pressing

Up Front UPF-134 reissue in a jacket printing the company’s Linden, New Jersey address (1972-1973), repackaging a 1959 gospel session under a new title and a mistaken artist credit.

The Album

The ten selections gathered here were first recorded for a Chicago label in 1959 by one of postwar gospel's most explosive vocal groups, fronted by the searing, gravel-shredding lead of Archie Brownlee. Formed by blind students at a Mississippi school in the 1930s and touring professionally from the following decade, the group built its reputation on hard, driving quartet harmony and Brownlee's screaming, house-wrecking delivery, a style that left a deep mark on the shouters of soul and R&B who followed. By the time of this session the group had already scored a national gospel hit with an earlier recording and stood among the two or three most influential quartets of the era, rivaled chiefly by the similarly named group from Alabama with whom they were - and still are - frequently confused. Cutting between hard-driving shouts and hushed, testifying ballads, the original program was prized by gospel collectors and historians for capturing Brownlee's voice at its rawest and most commanding not long before his death in 1960. Its songs remained staples of the quartet gospel repertoire long after, covered and referenced by generations of singers who came through the church tradition. The record's critical standing rests entirely on that original artistic achievement - the hard-charging, call-and-response fire of a group operating at the peak of its powers.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. My Robe Will Fit Me
2. I'm A Rolling
3. Don't Forget The Bridge
4. Let's Have Church
5. I Never Heard A Man

Side 2

1. You Don't Know
2. I Can See Everybody's Mother
3. How Far Am I From Canaan
4. Somebody's Mother
5. All Over Me

The Label

The labels on both sides are a plain white ground printed only in pink/magenta ink, carrying the angular UP FRONT wordmark at top, the song title and artist credit beneath it, the catalogue number and “Stereo” at lower left, and the speed/side notation at lower right; there is no colour band, no second logo, and no plant or pressing-house mark visible. The back cover carries the company's own imprint address, “Up Front Records, 1135 West Elizabeth Avenue, Linden, New Jersey 07035”. Up Front’s address was Linden, New Jersey, in 1972 and 1973, before the company moved to Rahway, New Jersey, for the later 1970s and then to Los Angeles, so the jacket was printed in that earlier Linden run; the labels print no address to date the pressing itself.

Fidelity

The masters were dubbed from the original 1959 tapes for a low-cost reissue program and pressed at an unidentified contract plant typical of the era's budget labels; the plain runout carries no mastering engineer's initials or stamper codes. Collectors generally regard these budget-label family reissues as thin, several generations removed from the master and pressed on lightweight vinyl, ranking them well below the original 1959 pressing as a listening copy. There is no audiophile reissue of this specific repackaged edition to compare against.

Notes

This is a 1970s budget reissue, not an original pressing: the program is drawn from a 1959 Chicago gospel session by the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, ten of its original songs repackaged here under a new title and a mistaken artist credit to the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. The plain stock Up Front label carries no plant identifier, but the back cover prints the company's “1135 West Elizabeth Avenue, Linden, New Jersey 07035” address, the company’s address in 1972 and 1973, before its later Rahway, New Jersey and Los Angeles addresses. The jacket dates from that earlier Linden run, c. 1972-1973; the labels print nothing that dates the pressing itself. The runout etchings read simply as the catalogue number repeated per side with no stamper, mastering or plant marks.

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