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Download: “Don’t Let Him Ride” – Mississippi Nightingales (1971) (mp3)

Here is the second of three songs we’re presenting this week from the forthcoming, eagerly awaited Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007, a stunning 80-song, triple-CD set compiled by Mike McGonigal of Yeti Magazine fame. Most of the songs on Fire are sourced from independent regional labels, and almost none have ever been widely available. These are some genuine lost treasures of American devotional music, folks. Mike has done some serious collecting, culling, and sequencing on this set, and we’re all the lucky beneficiaries.

The seriously Pops Staples-inflected “Don’t Let Him Ride,” adapted from the O.V. Wright composition, is from the set’s opening disk, “The Wicked Shall Cease from Troubling.” From the liner notes: “This song was released on a 45 on the Home Boy’s label, which might have the best logo artwork this side of Mingering Mike. H-B was one of a handful of labels featuring production by Bishop Bobby King Cole of Memphis, TN.”

Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007 is being released on October 27, 2009 by the good people of Tompkins Square Records of New York City. You can pre-order now from Amazon.

Previously: “How Long” by Sister Ola Mae Terrell (1948)