Lynn Abbott, I Got Two Wings: Incidents and Anecdotes of The Two-Winged Preacher and Electric Guitar Evangelist Elder Utah Smith (Brooklyn, NY: AUM Fidelity [www.aumfidelity.com], 2008), pp. 123 (pbk + CD) $19.95.
Despite waxing three of the hottest electric guitar records of the pre-Rock and Roll years, almost nothing has been known about the life of the sanctified electric guitar preacher, the Elder Utah Smith. African American music scholar Lynn Abbott’s years of research has produced a remarkable biographical study, finally shining a light onto the preaching, healing and guitar-playing ministry of this path breaking performer. I Got Two Wings firmly places Utah Smith within the Church of God in Christ tradition along with COGIC contemporaries as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Elder David Curry and the Rev. F.W. McGee. Filled with fascinating anecdotes and first hand remembrances and testimonies, I Got Two Wings also features many rare and unpublished photographs and an 18 track CD. The music CD includes 5 previously unknown Utah Smith songs, along with relevant performances by Tharpe, Curry, McGee and two rocking, sanctified performances by Utah Smith’s daughters, Sister Sarah James and the Sanctified Six.
Mark H. Stevens, When God Hides His Face: Managing the God Given Human Emotion that Causes Us to Feel Alienated From the God that Loves and Cares for Us (www.revoutionarydisciples.com: Revolutionary Disciples Media, 2008), pp. 150, (pbk), $14.00.
“My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?” Everyone has felt like this before but you may have not said it. I choose to develop this thesis to assist people that minister to the sick, the dying, and those that have been affected by careless words and the insensitivity of others. I have experienced pain and tragedy, in my own personal life, as a hospital chaplain, and prison minister. I spent 23 years in the Air Force and I have seen the effects of war and death. I came home from Desert Storm with an auto-immune disease (sarcoidosis). Like many of my fellow service men, we suffer for reasons for which no one can, or is willing to give an answer. When God Hides His Face seeks to help those who minister to people in crisis.
