****

SACRED STEEL: TRADITIONAL SACRED AFRICAN-AMERICAN STEEL GUITAR MUSIC IN FLORIDA

(Arhoolie)

This collection's 20 tracks, recorded in the '90s, capture the steel-guitar-led music of the Jewel and Keith Dominion Pentecostal churches of Florida, where the steel's been the dominant musical voice of services since the 1930s. It may seem esoteric, but when Glenn Lee rumbles in with the slurred bass notes of "Call Him by His Name" and starts swinging throughout the wide register of his double-necked pedal steel guitar . . . well, the music transcends the church and any other borders.

The five players recorded here are virtuosos, ranging from the old lion Willie Eason -- credited with being the first to play gospel on steel guitar -- to Lee, who's 29. Half the set is taken from live church services, but you can hear the steel's zinging persona best in the quieter at-home settings. There the nuances display the wide, expressive range that gives the instrument the fluid character of the human voice. Apt for singing praises. Also, one can hear how these players have assimilated the steel's vocabulary of country, blues, and Hawaiian music into a language closer to God's. (One caveat: my copy of the cover booklet duplicated some pages and omitted others.)

-- Ted Drozdowski