SATCHMO

Tomorrow Never Knows is easily one of my favorite Beatles songs and I can definitely appreciate such a profound, transcendent experience, with or without the blotter.


As someone who considers myself deeply spiritual, yet not affiliated with any one religion, there is a lot of overtly religious music that I love and appreciate simply because the soul and the energy that is put into it really reflects the human condition.

I love southern gospel and many legendary soul singers got their start singing in church and performing gospel music. In fact the birth of R&B and soul can really be attributed to the blending of blues and gospel. One of my favorite gospel albums is Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace, which is a compilation of some of her live gospel recordings:



And then there's John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, easily one of the greatest jazz masterpieces ever recorded. The entire album is essentially a prayer of praise to god transposed to music, and though there is only one verse throughout the entire album-- A love Supreme repeated over and over throughout the first track-- Coltranes intention and inspiration is manifested throughout the entire album.



Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming album is definitely not very high ranking among Dylan fans, but I have an appreciation for it Simply because it was quite a unique tangent for Dylan, who found Jesus long enough to record two Christian albums and went back to business as usual (Saved being the other album). The fact that it was produced by the late and legendary Jerry Wexler, a self-professed, "card-carrying, atheist Jew", and featured the legendary Muscle Shoals Horn Section makes it a great album to me.