Sauk City’s Cuca Records has long been acknowledged by collectors and local scholars as a significant purveyor of popular music from Wisconsin throughout the label’s 1950s-‘80s run. Less recognized has been the company's legacy of sacred song.
Chicago reissue specialists Numero Group, which purchased the rights to the Cuca catalog a couple years ago, remedies that slight by good measure with the release of Passages From The Caca Gospel, a 15-track compilation of African-American soul gospel released on Cuca’s Psalms imprint and featuring multiple Milwaukee musical evangelists. Most prominent among the acts from the city included here are The Gill Singers, who went on to record for vaunted gospel indie imprints Champ and J&B. The Gills’ contributions to Passages from ‘70s-era 45s deliver varying tempos of sanctified funkiness with both male and female lead vocals and one instance where hand claps substitute for drums.
The Vocalairs’ contribution interpolating “Joshua Fit the battle of Jericho” may be the set’s most frenzied offering; but other ensembles including The Singing Souls of Milwaukee, The Sensational Armon Singers, The Buford Aires and one with the theologically puzzling moniker of The Holy Providers all deliver on the after-the-fact idea of devotional black music with the grit and minimalist production approach of ‘60s garage punk.
The album’s last selection by The All National Choir broadens that approach to give an example of raw, yet stately, choral music, akin to what other congregational vocal groups of similar size were recording elsewhere throughout the U.S. as indie projects. A collection of Cuca/Psalms material by white acts would likewise be welcome, but this set of Passages makes for a valuable restoration of inspiring, invigorating local music history.
