Pitchfork

You didn't learn anything in history class. Maybe that's harsh. You undoubtedly learned things, but the picture of history-- especially recent history-- you get in school is essentially a massive connect-the-dots mural with only a fraction of the dots connected and none of the colors filled in. You have to work to do the rest, and that's one of the reasons I love compilations like this. It helps you fill in a part of the picture that you never even thought to look at. It's a 16-track compilation of soul music, sure, but it's intertwined with the histories of Israel, Liberia, the Black Hebrew movement, Zionist emigration, and black art and culture in Chicago.

The music on this disc was all recorded in Israel, made by a group of black expatriate Americans living in the Negev Desert city of Dimona. I can't give a full history of the Black Hebrew movement(s) here, but suffice to say that it tied together aspects of Judaism, black nationalism as first articulated by Marcus Garvey, and Zionism; South Chicago's Black Hebrew leader, Ben Ammi Carter, saw Garvey's back-to-Africa concept as a step on the way to settling in the Promised Land itself, Israel.

The path from Chicago to Dimona was a winding one, and it ran partly through the recording studios of Chicago, where many of the musicians heard here first connected with each other in the Metrotones, an extraordinary studio band that played on dozens of hit 45s in the mid-60s. As certain musicians in the group became more involved in the movement, they also began plans to emigrate to Liberia, where they turned to music as a way to earn a living when economic prospects in their settlement turned from dim to downright grim. The move was made in 1967, and the Soul Messengers, as they were christened, were possibly the first group to play James Brown's "Cold Sweat" in Africa, while Geraldo Pino, Orlando Julius, and Fela Kuti were all still working highlife grooves.

Touring West Africa proved too difficult and unrewarding to continue (In his Black Hebrew memoir From Night to Sunlight, Thomas "Yehuda" Whitfield described a harrowing incident in the Ivory Coast in which he and bandmate John Boyd were taken captive and nearly killed during one particularly awful trip), and the settlement in Liberia dispersed to Israel and the U.S. Boyd and Whitfield returned to America, but ultimately joined their brethren in Dimona in 1972. The Soul Messengers, restocked with members from within the community, boosted their popularity by playing military gigs free of charge during the Yom Kippur War. The Soul Messengers were augmented by satellite acts, the female vocal group Spirit of Israel, the teen duo the Tonistics, and ultimately a male vocal group called the Sons of the Kingdom.

All are featured on this compilation. In one sense, this is something of a summary of Numero's explorations of the unlit corners of soul history. It has religious funk, rough-edged disco, singing children, eccentric soul, communal living arrangements, shoestring budgets, Black Hebrew tie-ins, psychedelic touches, altered identities, and lots of quality music that never got exposed as it might have. The variety is astounding, especially considering that it's the same basic group of musicians playing all the backing tracks.

The Soul Messengers tracks range from a discofied semi-cover of Steam's "Na Na Na (Kiss Him Goodbye)" with Hebrew lyrics to funked-up jazz on "Prince of Zeal". "Messiah" is a brilliant, slow-burning psychedelic soul track with a ramshackle horn arrangement and an impassioned, subtle vocal, and "Savior in the East" is even more acid-damaged, with wah-wah guitars nipping at the edges of its Afrofunk beat and dubwise effects tripping out the vocal hooks. The most jaw-dropping groove on the disc, though, belongs to "Victory", a hard-hitting, high-tempo drum, bass, and horn workout; as an instrumental, it's not explicitly spreading the Black Hebrew gospel, but sometimes you don't need words to preach.

Not surprisingly, this band provided stellar backing for its collaborators. The Spirit of Israel tracks are the most overtly gospel. "Daniel" has a great lead/response vocal arrangement, and the strangely lo-fi way the backing singers are recorded gives the otherwise hi-fi recording a weird, arresting quality. The young Tonistics sang beyond their years, and their tribute to Dimona, "Dimona (Spiritual Capital of the World)", is about as effervescent as kid soul songs come, with honeyed backing vocals from the Spirit of Israel.

The Sons of the Kingdom's two tracks are a mixed bag. "Hey There" is a great slice of smoothly funky harmony soul, but their hysterical denunciation of modern life, "Modernization", is a rather ham-handed bit of alarmist social critique with an awkward groove and vocal arrangement. One interesting dud is a small price to pay for such an amazing clutch of forgotten gems, though. This is a solid, solid disc, and if you're allergic to religious music don't worry-- this music was specifically designed as a gateway to Black Hebrew thought and is often surprisingly secular or at least vague in its religiousness. Its value is enhanced, however, by the fact that it fills in a small bit of the story of the black American separatism and spirituality.