Review: Angola Prison Spirituals

ango
Various Artists
“Angola Prison Spirituals”
(Arhoolie)

This is a set of 22 tracks recorded by Dr. Harry Oster. It features Robert Pete Williams as vocalist and/or guitarist on several tracks. The late ’50’s recordings are compelling and starkly spiritual. There is little to no background noises so that this appears to be more of a studio recording than field recording, no matter how makeshift the studio Oster may have used at Angola. This is the entire original LP with a full nine more tracks added to the programming.