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Country-folk singer-songwriter Kate Campbell, a Mississippi native, combines Baptist hymns with original material and a Gordon Lightfoot cover on Wandering Strange, her fifth release. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and featuring Muscle Shoals session musicians (sans the brass section), the album demonstrates authenticity and earnestness. A purely gospel album is a different direction for Campbell, but it seems as if she certainly enjoyed retracing her roots while making it.

A preacher's daughter, Campbell states in the CD booklet that she "grew up singing hymns from the Baptist hymnal." Six of the album's eleven tracks indeed are "traditional" Baptist hymns, the newest, "The King's Business" and "Dear Little Stranger," were written in 1902. The oldest two, "Come Thou Fount" and "There is a Fountain," date back to the mid-18th century. Campbell has given all of them contemporary arrangements complete with electric guitars on occasion. Interestingly, the album's title comes not from any of the gospel numbers; instead, it was taken
from "The House You Live In," the Gordon Lightfoot composition that opens the CD. Campbell does a fine job of emulating Lightfoot's characteristic strong beat while making use of her own slight country twang to make the song her own. With a chorus of "the house you live in will never fall down/ when you pity the stranger that stands by the gate," the song introduces the themes to come.

"Bear It Away," a contemporary number co-written by Campbell and her husband, Ira Campbell, perhaps is the most poignant piece included. Written about the 1963 bombing of Birmingham, Alabama's 16th Street Baptist Church in which four African-American children died, its upbeat melody belies the song's tragic story. Half documentary ("One deadly blast shattered the peace") and half prayer ("Bear it away, bear it away/Merciful Jesus, lift up our sorrow"), its meaning
unfortunately resonates all too well in a world still torn by racism even in the 21st century.

Wandering Strange will not appeal to all country-folk fans. It's clearly a gospel album and never tries to be anything but that. It may be a slight departure for Campbell's fans, but her voice is strong, her intentions honorable, and the results are fervent and impassioned.

For more information visit www.eminentrecords.com