Rev. Charlie Jackson played deep, raw, bluesy gospel. Born in 1932 just outside of McComb, Mississippi, he took up the electric guitar as a young man and started out playing the blues. Soon afterwards, he gave up the blues to serve the Lord. He developed a highly potent style and often played on church programs with the legendary Rev. Utah Smith. He subsequently recorded a string of incredible and legendary 45s for Booker Records out of New Orleans. After his classic recordings for Booker went out-of-print, Rev. Jackson took matters into his own hands and started his own private press label, Jackson Records, in the late '70s. This disc collects almost all of his commercially-issued material, and it's some of my all-time favorite music. I've listened to these songs hundreds of times and they still move me deeply. If this sort of thing sounds as if it would be to your taste, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Hear several tracks of this newly remastered version over at Bandcamp.

Praise for "God's Got It! The Legendary Booker and Jackson Singles":

“Like a sanctified version of John Lee Hooker, Reverend Charlie Jackson plays raw, slashing electric guitar and erupts in urgent hallelujahs as occasional backup singers inject call-and-response fervor. Jackson’s gruff, exuberant vocals celebrate salvation, but he doesn’t portray it as a painless process: ‘Wrapped Up Tangled Up in Jesus’ depicts a soul in turmoil. These aren’t polished recordings; befitting their origins in tiny Louisiana studios, the songs boast crackling, distorted sound and are all the more effective for it. The rowdiest rock and roll has nothing on Reverend Jackson.” – Jon Young, Mother Jones

“All it takes is the volatile growl of his singing, the terse twang of his Fender guitar and a lone congregation member clapping and singing responses for the Rev. Charlie Jackson to rock the heavens on ‘God’s Got It’. The songs [here] were collector's-item singles that the White Stripes must wish they owned.” – Jon Pareles, The New York Times

“In the 1970s, this Mississippi-born man of God made a series of holy-blues singles for the tiny Booker and Jackson labels. This set has...heated sermons of need, devotion and joy, blessed by Jackson's thunder-and-Lightnin’ Hopkins voice and crusty-tremelo, railroad-boogie riffing. ‘If you need it, God’s got it,’ goes the opening hymn. But the reverend rocks it.” – David Fricke, Rolling Stone

“Total world-class, hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-yer-neck, jaw-droppingly righteous, beyond-category music of the highest order.” – Rob Cambre, Where Y’at, New Orleans

“It’s rare I hear something that really blows me away, but hearing ‘God’s Got It’ was like hearing Chuck Berry or The Ramones for the first time.” – Jared Swilley, Black Lips

“And then there is the Reverend Charlie Jackson. Once in a great while a record comes along that is so cripplingly amazing that it betrays all common manner of description.” – Michael Hurtt, Offbeat

NPR review by Meredith Ochs