Double Take: Tell Jesus

I was talking with a good friend of mine and asking his opinion of more things that should be featured here. One suggestion of his I thought was a great idea and that's to showcase so-to-speak songs that the are widely known or made popular by other artists but were orginally recorded by another artists (hope that makes sense...lol). I've searched the web and have seen that there's a lot of listeners to gospel music, which is great, but when it comes to who may have recorded the song originally, many of those same people have no clue.

Does it really matter who recorded the song orginally, some may say, yes, while others may say, not really, but I think it's nice to know. Often times there can be a slight to almost dramatic difference in how the songs are presented that may affect how it speaks to a person, and other times, there's no difference whatsoever. Hopefully this feature (which I'm still looking for a name to call it because I'm not really feeling: Double Take, so hit me up with your suggestions) will help others become aware of these artists and more of their music if they haven't already.

This week I thought I'd start with Chicago's own Chicago Mass Choir and Malcolm Williams and The Voices of Great Faith. Both choirs recorded Brenda J. Moore's Tell Jesus (who is also well known for writing Perfect Praise, recorded by Walt Whitman and The Soul Children of Chicago) in their own unique way. First recorded on Chicago Mass Choir's 1990 debut album, Right Now, If You Believe, the song starts out with no musical introduction just the sopranos singing "Tell Jesus..." with all the other voices and instruments falling in afterwards. The song begins slowly and smoothly, then with each line of the verse, it's built it up until it seems it can't be contained anymore to just tell the listener to tell Jesus all about it. The drive of the song is the vamp and the end, especially when when the choir splits up pyramid style at the end singing, "tell"...whew! Other than the unmistakeably churchy sound that Chicago Mass Choir brings forth, one also can't help but to notice how the piano and organ, and at times the guitar, enhance the song.

Then there's Malcolm Williams and The Voices of Great Faith's version that was released on their 2002 release, Gotta Make It, with Malcolm Willams singing lead. The song starts out with a piano introduction, with the verse starting out much softer than Chicago Mass' version. Most notably you can hear that they took this song in a different direction. The song is much slower and simple with just the choir and the piano (and at times the guitar) at the beginning, which I think works because you're really focused in on the message of the song without the distraction of the loud music; it's a good mix. The organ then joins in at the vamp, and even still the song still contains that melllow sound to it. Overall you can hear the difference beteween the two, one's tradtional sounding while the other has a heavy contemporary sound to it.

Which one do I like, well, I'm blessed by both and therefore don't have a preference over either. What I would like to know are your thoughts about either version or just the song overall, let me know by writing to me in the comment link below. Be blessed and have a safe weekend!

P.S.
You can listen to the songs by clicking on the cover of the albums. :-)