Rev. Johnny L. "Hurricane" Jones, RIP

[jeffcrom]

Atlanta has produced some great recording preachers - J.M. Gates in the 1920s and 30s, Jasper Williams, Sr. in the 1960s and 70s, and Rev. Johnny L Jones, The Hurricane, until yesterday.

I heard about The Hurricane's death yesterday, but didn't want to post here until I read some "official" confirmation. Rev. Jones died on Monday, November 9, 2015, at the age of 79. The pastor of Second Mt. Olive Baptist Church made numerous albums for Jewel from the 1960s to the 80s, and late in his life was proud of the two albums released by Dust-to-Digital. I have five of his older albums on Jewel, as well as a couple of singles. The Hurricane was not afraid to use pop culture references to get his message across - right now I'm listening to his sermon "Secret Storm," and others were "If Loving You is Wrong," "I Don't Need No Doctor," and "You Upset Me, Baby." His sermons were long, slow burns, perfectly paced, and he was a fabulous singer. On all of his albums, there are songs before and after the sermon, and some of them are just hair-raising.

I'll miss his 30-minute Saturday morning radio show on WYZE, Atlanta's AM gospel station. It was strange and unpredictable; I'm glad I recorded a few of them.

I know that there's at least one other fan of Rev. Jones here, so I wanted to make sure his death was noted here. RIP, Hurricane.

[JSngry]

Yes, RIP.

 

[John L]

RIP The Hurricane, who truly lived up to his name a force of nature.    His 2-disc CD gets a lot of play from me.   

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Oh goodness! Well, it looks like there are four of us (though, if I'm not mistaken, Paul Secor is, as well, which makes five).

I have 2 LPs - 'I came to preach a sermon', which includes 'I don't need no doctor', and 'Jesus is in town', which includes the 45 Jim posted of 'A Prayer'. And I have two radio programmes Jeff sent me. I didn't know there were CDs. I'll have to look to see what there is. There was an LP I never saw called 'Sleeping in a dangerous time' which should be valuable.

RIP Hurricane.

MG