Spencer Bohren - Carry the Word - by Bill Wasserzieher

Blues Review | September, 2000

Carry the Word is a collection of 11 songs of old-time devotion, played at hymnal pace with slide guitar for accompaniment. The songs range from "Bound for Glory" to "I Am a Pilgrim" and are immensely comforting, which is just what I need from time to time.

I have listened repeatedly to Bohren's album and continue to find deep satisfaction. Perhaps it's some residual memory surfacing from the days when my ancestors attended country churches in southern Ohio and Missouri before industrialization brought them to the secular promised land of California. I suspect they sang such songs as "Samson and Delilah" and "I Am a Pilgrim," but for me - a product of my age and time - the first is just and old Victor Mature movie and the latter a Byrds tune from when they went country on Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

Bohren, however, reminds that religion, despite its punishing morality, also provides bedrock sustenance during periods of trouble. His voice is calming, his slide guitar is as sparsely understated as that of Kelly Joe Phelps and his choice of material is as universal as one could expect within such a context. I don't see myself spending Sundays at church or watching cable preachers vent bigotry and hypocrisy in the name of religion, but I will continue to find faith in Bohren's Carry the Word. We can all use some comfort for the soul.

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