SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN–Lets Make a Record (orig '70 LP)

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SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN – “Let’s Make a Record” (1970) True Believer Records LB-1 super rare original private press street preacher/folk artist wild black gospel LP – M-/M- (cover/record)

Wow, this is a piece. I’m going to give you a lot of information that I have first-hand about this from my days at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans, which exhibited some of Sister Gertrude Morgan’s artwork at one of their properties in the New Orleans French Quarter. This one will have an appeal to both music lovers and art lovers. Here’s the story…

Sister Gertrude was a street preacher and folk artist, and her work was all inspired by her religious beliefs. This album is a collection of some of her gospel songs – it’s her singing and playing tambourine. It was a project of Larry Borenstein, a New Orleans art dealer who sold Morgan’s art and also established Preservation Hall. Morgan was “paid” for recording this album with a box of 50 of these albums, and she didn’t even have a turntable! A woman who looked after her had her paint original artwork on the back covers of those albums, and she took them out to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in the early 70s and sold them for $25 each. If you were to find one of those today, it could be worth $10,000 – no lie!

Anyway, Borenstein alegedly had a bad reputation for exploiting her, and reportedly he even took all the art off her walls as she laid dead in her church (called “The Prayer Room,” where this album was remotely recorded), which was also her home – at least, that’s what I heard at a scholarly lecture once by Regina Perry, the woman who sold those painted LPs for her out at Jazz Fest.

So, to the music and this album. It’s all these crazy chanting gospel songs that she wrote, and she plays tambourine and claps her hands. One hip-hop artist has even recorded a re-make of this album over original beats and other samples. The songs here are “Let Us Make a Record,” “Way in the Middle of the Air,” “I Got the New World in My View,” “If You Live Like Jesus Told,” “He Wrote the Revelation,” “Take the Lord Along With You,” “The Gift of God Is Eternal Life,” “Power,” “I Was Heard from the Wound in His Side,” “Take My Hand, Lead Me On,” “I Am the Living Bread,” “New Jerusalem,” “Gods Word Will Never Pass Away,” and “Power” again. This is some wild stuff, and she had a crazy raspy voice and remarkable lyrical and rhythm talents.

You can also go to www.sistergertrude.com for some great additional information about this album and Sister Gertrude’s history.

Copies of this have fetched $200, and a local auction house gave me a bid estimate from past auctions of $400.

The cover is a sepia reproduction of some of her classic self-taught art. Her paintings included paint, shoe polish, and often ballpoint pen writings inspired by her spirituality. The entire thing is in just about perfect shape. The cover is beautiful with no seam splits or wear. That writing is part of her art – not writing that someone added to the cover. The vinyl is just about perfect. The label reads “Preservation Hall” – not “True Believer Records” like the cover does. I grade this conservatively M-/M- (cover/record).

Here’s the bio I got off of a website, just for more info if you care to have it:

A musician and poet, Sister Gertrude Morgan was a natural as an artist, although she got a late start, like many self-taught artists. Her paintings and drawings, often on found objects, are profoundly religious yet joyous. It also offers a vivid self-portrait of herself and her life as a self-proclaimed missionary, as she appears in the majority of her figurative work. She also produced some handsome, color-added text-only pieces late in her life. Sister Gertrude's works are blasts of exuberant primary colors laced with a luscious, electric white paint (originally white shoe polish, according to one account) and often threaded with lines of text. Her repetitive patterns, especially dots, make her a prime candidate for the Pattern and Decoration School, though her subject matter is entirely different. The seventh child of an Alabama farmer with a third-grade education, Gertrude Willliams married Will Morgan in 1928 and lived in Georgia. She received a call from God to preach in 1934. She experienced other revelations during her long career as a self-proclaimed missionary, which lasted until her death. In 1939, called again, she moved to New Orleans, where she set up a children's home with two other women. They all wore black dresses with a white collar. What happened to the marriage is unknown. She traveled in the south preaching and attending religious gatherings. Back in the French Quarter, she distributed food and clothing along with her other missionary duties. Around 1956, Sister Gertrude, already deeply involved in art-making as a religious poet and musician, received another revelation telling her to use art to illustrate her sermons. About a year later, she was called to become the "bride of Christ," after which she dressed completely in white. She went out on her own to preach, eventually establishing her own mission. She sold her artworks to help support herself and her mission, made a record of her songs, and received national recognition for her art. "Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan," curated by William A. Fagaly of the New Orleans Museum of Art, who knew Sister Gertrude during the last 12 years of her life, neatly lays out the development of her distinctive art. Her development, from copying from the Bible and possibly other religious texts to a signature style of her own, appears to have been rapid. Drawn to the book of Revelation, like many other self-taught preacher-artists, her vision of a New Jerusalem is her most important theme. This vision translates in her paintings into images of multi-storied houses, gardens (which often resemble the one near her Everlasting Gospel Mission in New Orleans), and Sister Gertrude herself, dressed in white with "Dada Jesus." The skies above are typically filled with multicolored angels, like those swooping overhead in the undated There's a Bright Crown Waitang (sic) for Me in acrylic and/or tempera, pencil, ballpoint pen on wood panel. In 1974, she received another revelation to stop painting and to devote her time to poetry, which may have had something to do with difficulties with her eyes. Sister Gertrude, a single-minded missionary, never took credit for her art. She maintained that everything she created came from God, just like the Reverend Howard Finster, John (J. B.) Murry and a host of other self-taught artists. She once said: "He moves my hand. Do you think I would ever know how to do a picture like this by myself?"

Winner pays postage. Domestic U.S. shipping is $3.50 media rate or $8 for priority mail (insurance additional and quoted at cost). Shipping to Canada is $7 for airmail or $4 for surface mail. I will quote overseas postage when overseas winning bidder specifies air/surface mail – a good guideline is $7 for a single LP by surface mail and $14 for a single LP by airmail.

I package all LPs securely in record mailers and remove the vinyl from the covers to prevent seam splits during mailing. I do not just stick your record in a priority mailer box from the post office or between two thin pieces of cardboard with no additional packaging materials like so many others!!!

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Thanks for looking, and good luck!

All the best from New Orleans,

Larry