"Believe" by Famous L. Renfroe 
In celebration of July 4th, I'm posting a few days early and highlighting a slice of down-home gospel/blues Americana from Famous L. Renfroe's 1969 album Children recently re-released on CD by Mississippi-based Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum Records (home of other artists I like, including Andrew Bird and A.A. Bondy).
Renfroe (a.k.a. The Flying Sweet Angel of Joy) is a one-man band who's a bit of a mystery. Even his record company doesn't seem to know anything about him. According to eMusic, his label refers to him as the "J.D. Salinger of soul gospel" and the editor did quite a bit of research and turned up basically nothing.
What can't be denied is that Renfroe is pretty amazing. Not only is he supposedly playing all of the instruments, but on some of the tracks, he recreates all of the parts in quartet style singing. For more about him, visit eMusic. For a while, I think eMusic had an exclusive on the album, but it is now also available on iTunes. This is truly transporting music. Check it out.
