Many southern blues musicians performed and recorded gospel songs; spirituals or church songs as they were called. Some, like Blind Willie Johnson and Edward W. Clayborn, strictly adhered to a religious message earning them thehandle 'guitar evangelists', while others, like Fred McDowell and Charlie Patton, blurred the socially imposed lines and mingled gospel with the blues.

In this anthology of Bottleneck Gospel Guitar Tom Feldmann highlightsthe fervent and aggressive slide playing of...