Inez Andrews - It’s A Needed Time

Topic: Seminal Versions
Concerts rather than recordings were traditionally the way musicians earned money. For religious artists, they were doubly important because they were a substitutes for church services, while records were only a reminder - rather like the difference between the mass and a rosary.

During the 1930s, artists who could afford automobiles traveled from town to town, staying with local church people when they could. Into the 1960s, segregation laws precluded the use of trains and hotels. Albertina Walker remembered:

"On the road, we couldn’t go into white hotels or white restaurants. We couldn’t do none of that then. We had to go to the back door to get food. [. . .] We drove in cars during that time, six of us going all across the country." [1]

Promoters in Word War II put together packages of entertainers to perform at military installations and in cities with war production factories. These continued after the war: sometimes a single person would put together a group that went from place to place, sometimes an entrepreneur in a single location would schedule a number of acts together. They often filled out the program with local performers.

Artists were not responsible for performing an entire evening, but only for a portion. Shorn of the need to handle everything, they concentrated on their most popular songs. When they were scheduled between artists with different styles, they did not need to vary their pace as much. That is, if they were between two groups who featured slow songs, they could concentrate on up-tempo ones.

These tours were cauldrons that exposed artists to each other’s work, and created friendships beyond the regional ones that already existed. Inez Andrews’ mother died when she was two. [2] Her father [3] and Lil McGriff [4] raised her in Birmingham, Alabama. She began singing in his Baptist church, and worked with a local group that toured the "Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia region." [5]

Meantime, McGriff’s daughter, Dorothy Love was singing with the Original Gospel Harmonettes [6]. One time when Andrews was substituting for Love in Nashville, James Cleveland heard her sing, [7] and recommended her to Albertina Walker. He then was the pianist for Walker’s group, the Gospel Caravans. [8] In 1957, Andrews moved to Chicago to join the group. [9]

The Newport Folk Festivals of the middle-1960s created a taste among the educated for programs that featured unfamiliar artists and styles. Two European promoters put together a package to introduce Germans to contemporary African-American religious music. [10] It included a minister and some of his parishioners from a Church of God in Christ church, the Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, and Andrews. By then, she had her group, the Andrewettes.

One of the songs Andrews sang was "It’s a Needed Time." She never recorded it, but it became known through the concert circuit. In 1968, the Mighty Gospel Giants recorded it, [11] and since it has been sung by both professionals like Melvin Couch [12] and local groups.

Andrews’ version reused phrases popularized by Lightnin’ Hopkins, but with a different melody and a truncated verse structure. The phrase "it’s a needed time" became its distinctive feature.

Performers
Vocal Accompaniment: Bettie Jones Sims, Elaine Davis, Mildred Span, Elizabeth Dargan

Instrumental Accompaniment: James Conley, piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: piano, tambourine

Credits
I. Andrews
(P) 1981 [13]

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verse Phrases: needed time, don’t stay long, oh Lord

Vocabulary:
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord, Lordy

God is real: this phrase in Andrew’s first spoken line was a reference to a theological movement exploring the consequences of the secularization of morality, especially after Auschwitz. A Time magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" on 8 April 1966, and turned what was then an academic debate into a popular slogan for the religious. Andrews may not have been aware when she made her statement in Bremen that it was a German, Friedrich Nietzsche, who first raised the problem. [14]

Format: verse-chorus within ritual prelude-denouement structure
Prelude

Andrews introduced the song by saying God was the world’s greatest healer, with an invitation for Him to come make "everything all right." Then, she and the Andrewettes repeated the "Oh Lord" chorus with fragments of Hopkins’ verses.

Denouement: repetitions of "Oh Lord" in sets that began or ended with a variant of "needed time."

Notes on Music
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: call-response followed by group singing with soloist making comments

Singing Style:
Solo: by the time Andrews was performing in Bremen, she recognized people "don’t pay me to sing, they like to hear me holler." [15]

Group: chordal harmony

Solo-Group Dynamics:
Prelude: Andrews and the group sang a phrase. They began together, then Andrews paused after "right now," then continued "is a needed after time" just a bit after them.

Denouement: the group repeated phrases in even timing, which allowed Andrews to sing her high notes independently. They often were emphasized by extending beyond the group’s tones.

Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: the piano primarily played rhythm, but used chordal progressions that were melodic. The tambourine was loud on the downbeat, softer on the upbeat. Both were loud at the ends of verses, and the piano played through the pauses between verses.

Notes on Performance
Recorded live at Die Glocke, a 1920s Bremen concert hall with excellent acoustics. [16] Tony Cummings said the concert also was taped in Baden Baden by SWR TV in an empty church "where the artists were asked to whip up Holy Spirit fervour before rows of empty pews. Some succeeded better than others, none more so than Inez Andrews And The Andrewettes." [17]

Audience Perceptions
Siegfried Schmidt-Joos noticed "some members of the audience exclaimed rather bewilderedly that they have not been able to differentiate between mere ‘show’ and genuine fervour" in the three acts presented. He then essayed a cultural gulf by explaining, "the screams, gesticulations, and the dancing, which Europeans would only produce designedly, self-consciously and hence spuriously, are quite genuine expressions of religious fervour." [18]

The Andrewettes responded with amens and other comments during the pauses in Andrew’s spoken introduction. The only audience response on the record was applause at the end.

Notes on Performers
Andrews formed the Andrewettes in 1962, but was working as a solo artist in 1967. [19] Tony Heilbut noted, "it was an artistic advance but financially, a rear-guard action." [20]

She died in 2012. Her homegoing was held at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. [21]

Availability
Album: The Famous Spiritual + Gospel Festival of 1965. Bremen, Germany, 25 January 1965. L+R Records 44.005. 1981.

YouTube: uploaded by Reneesaskia, 16 February 2012.

End Notes
1. Interview published by Billboard. Quoted by Tony Cummings. "Inez Andrews: Gospel Roots - Remembering the Caravans’ lead singer." Cross Rhythms website.

2. Dennis Hevesi. "Inez Andrews, Gospel Singer, Dies at 83." The New York Times, 21 December 2012.

3. Her parents were Theodore and Pauline McConico. Andrews was briefly married to Robert Andrews; they divorced when she was 18. (Hevesi)

4. Tony Heilbut. The Gospel Sound. Garden City: Anchor Press, 1975 edition. 325.

5. Cummings. The group was Carter’s Choral Ensemble.

6. Cummings.

7. JM. "Updated: Inez Andrews of The Caravans Dead at Age 83." The Golden Era Gospel website, 19 December 2012.

8. JM.

9. Wikipedia. "Inez Andrews."

10. Siegfried Schmidt-Joos. Liner notes, Famous Spiritual. The promoters were Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau.

11. The Mighty Gospel Giants. "It’s a Needed Time." Veep Gospel VPS 16534. 1968.

12. The Golden Wings of Atlanta, Georgia. "It’s a Needed Time." It’s a Needed Time. Grammercy Records. Gram 345. 2010.

13. (P)is the symbol for a copyright protected recording. It was introduced in Europe in the 1960s, and was brought here in 1971. (Wikipedia. "Sound Recording Copyright Symbol.")

14. Wikipedia. "God Is Dead."

15. Cummings.

16. Wikipedia. "Die Glocke (Bremen)."

17. Cummings.

18. Schmidt-Joos.

19. Wikipedia, Andrews.

20. Heilbut. 326.

21. JM.