Consumer Guide Album

Steve Arrington: The Jammin' National Anthem [Atlantic, 1986]
Here we come up against the perils of Christianity as a political matrix in black music (and life). I don't doubt the goodness of Arrington's heart any more than I do his Stevie-cum-Bootsy vocal and rhythmic dexterity. But last time he was brimming with charity and full of fun, where now the anxiety that besets anyone who sticks to "old-fashioned" values in a time of upheaval erodes his tolerance. So he sounds a little frightened--of gays, of teen violence, of a "new age" that won't look like his dreams no matter how many anthems he writes. He misses Martin Luther King a lot. So do we all. B