Reverend James Cleveland - Hallelujah: Hob Recordings

Following up on KCs great recent and other posts of the music of Rev. James Cleveland, I decided to share this one.  KC has shared some great recordings, but I don't believe that these yet include the sides that the Reverend made for Hob records in 1959-1960.  So here is something like a greatest hits collection from that ball of wax.  I don't believe that much else, if anything, from Cleveland on Hob made it to CD, at least outside of Japan. 

The subtitle of this CD is "A Collection of His Finest Recordings."   While Music Club likes to use that moniker for all of their CDs :), this time there may be something to the claim.  Cleveland made so many great classic recordings that it is difficult to argue that one particular set is the finest.   But I tend to think that these Hob recordings are at least among the finest.  Cleveland is in brilliant vocal form, the songs and good, and so is the production.   So there is nothing to complain about here, except maybe the sound quality, which is not as good as KCs most recent post of the 70s Savoy material.  So you might not want to crank up your stereo quite as high when you listen to this one. :)