The Soul Messengers

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The Soul Messengers was an Israeli-American soul , funk , and rhythm & blues band from the 1970s.

The African American formation The Soul Messengers emerged from the American Back-to-Africa movement of the 1960s. At its core, the band consisted of Charles “Hezekiah” Blackwell (bass), Thomas “Yehudah” Whitfield (guitar) and John “Shevat” Boyd (vocals), who came from Chicago and worked there for local soul labels such as Mar-V-Lus , Toddlin 'Town, One-Der-Ful, and M-Pac . The musicians first played in Monrovia , then toured Africa and Europe, before living in Israel from 1967 and from the early 1970s in the community of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem in Dimona and supporting them with their music.

The band's music was a mix of straight-ahead and psychedelic soul, rasta beats, fusion , funk and gospel ; the song contents mostly dealt with spiritual topics. The track "Go to Proclaim" was a tribute to Willie Mitchell and Al Green , with Hebrew lead vocals; "Our Lord and Savior" is a disco-funk version of Steam's "Na-Na-Hey-Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)". The formation presented two albums, The Soul Messengers on Columbia Records (1975) and We Try (Kingdom Production, 1976); several singles ("99-1 / 2") and titles such as "Dimona", "Hoshienu Adonenu" and "Wouldn't It Be a Shame" appeared on compilations such as Soulico - Archeology: A Deep Dig Into Israeli Grooves and The Music City Sessions Vol. I: Richmond Experience (1974) . The original recordings (including several tracks on which the Messengers musicians played as a backing band for other formations) were re-released in 2008 on the compilation CD Soul Messages from Dimona .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John L. Jackson Jr. Thin Description. Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem . Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013, p. 234
  2. ↑ http://www.popmatters.com/review/various-artists-soul-messages-from-dimona/