Reverend Louis Overstreet :: I’m Working On A Building

Reverend Louis Overstreet was born in Louisiana in 1947. He began singing in gospel quartets and preaching at a young age, before settling in Phoenix, Arizona in 1961. It was in Phoenix that  Overstreet was discovered by Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records, who would record and release the album Rev. Louis Overstreet — His Guitar, His Sons and the Congregation of St. Luke’s Powerhouse Church of God in Christ. Seriously raw, intense homespun gospel, Overstreet’s recordings have most recently appeared on the Mississippi Records tape, Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, But Nobody Wants to Die, and the 2009 Tompkins Square compilation, Fire in My Bones: Raw, Rare and Other-Wordly African-American Gospel 1944-2007.

The following video is a prime example of the impassioned vocal and musical performances that went down in Overstreet’s church. Raw and hypnotic, the clip is culled from the 1963 German documentary, Down Home Music: A Journey Through the Heartland, which is available on DVD through Arhoolie Records. Shouting, stomping and the Holy Ghost follow. words / c depasquale

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2 thoughts on “Reverend Louis Overstreet :: I’m Working On A Building

  1. Incredible man from top to bottom, I would kill to have witnessed his stuff live! He’s one of the few reasons I’m proud to be a Phoenician (…there ain’t many these days).

  2. wow. it weren’t a bit like that where I went to church when I was a boy. that’s simply awesome. mind you, I was born and raised a Protestant Presbyterian back before the flood….

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