The Shiloh’s – “God Bless Ya Brother”

The jackets. The back cover. They’re from Flora, Illinois (but not on the Crusade label) – so far everything looks promising about the Shiloh’s 1970-something album on the GNC Records label.

It opens with “Touring That City” – and it starts off slow and quiet, before the group all joins in together to sing this song, and hey, it’s not that bad. The musicianship is good. The vocals are good. It is an enjoyable opening track. Next we go into a “Gaither Medley” and it opens with some nice guitar playing. These guys got some great voices, and the guys providing the backing music are phenomenal too. It’s a good track, they do some nice parts of Gaither songs. “King Jesus” comes next, and it is delivered nicely by the gentleman singing, whoever he is. “Jesus Made Me Higher” comes next, it is a slower song, but still delivered nicely. I really do enjoy when they go from one vocalist to all three singing together. “Just Take it to Jesus” ends the A-Side, and it’s a quicker song, upbeat and happy. They do deliver some nice vocals on this one. I do wonder who each of these men are on the cover.

The B-Side opens with the title track “God Bless ‘Ya’ Brother” and it’s not bad, they got a good group dynamic on the vocals, and this is a pretty solid album so far. I’m assuming it was written by someone in the group, and I’m sure the guys on the front are not the guys on the back either. This is just a bunch of extremely talented, unnamed men on this album. “Sanctified” comes next, and boy this guitar playing in this one is pretty solid, and the vocals are great too. I think this is one of the most solid tracks on this album. We go onto the next track, “I Saw Him There” and the lead vocalist on this one has a pretty distinct voice, it’s a nice relaxing gospel track. “Stand By Me” continues the album, and it isn’t the Ben E. King track, it’s a slower song, and it’s alright. Nothing overly exciting, unfortunately. The album closes with the song “I’m Gonna Write a Song” which kind of has a funk / pop sound to it, but it is a really good way to end the album, to a pretty good album.

Catalog Number:
SLP-GNC-643

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Sandy Rupp – “Wandering” Fay Sims & the Scenicland Boys – “Songs from the Heart” The Gentlemen Four – “We’ll Be Seeing You…” Stufflebeam Family – “Ozark Gospel Singin'”