All you corn-licker drinkers, fornicators, slick-fingered gamblers, mother heart breakers and midnight ramblers-look out! Reverend James M. Gates with his old-style, buck-wild, rip-roaring, take no prisoners, backwoods country preaching is gonna reserve you a seat on the hell bound express! The Rev. is in rare form as he waxes some of his wildest and most comical (to most modern ears) sermons. Most of this stuff is fall-down-on the floor funny, but there's a lot of earnestness here too. "Death is On Your Track" and "Flood in Alabama" are really moving meditations on the power of divine providence. "Straining at a Gnat and Ganwing at a Camel" is mighty strong stuff for 1929. He addresses "You Negro Haters" who "hate to eat with the Negro but don't him him fixing your food" and who "sleeps with Negroes!" Considering that he recorded this in Atlanta during the days of massive lynching in Georgia, this is gutsy indeed! "Dead Cat on the Line" (which Rev. C.L. Franklin has cited as inspiring him to preach as a child) is fascinating, as he talks about "Illegal" children. When a sister in the congregation says "I think I know who the father of my last two children is," I defy anyone not to roll over in hysterics! This, the 1927-28 collection, and the compilation "Are You Bound for Heaven or Hell" will provide lots of wild laughter and some things to actually meditate about. Never a dull moment! When it came to recorded preachers, Rev. James M. Gates was the uncrowned king! Whoa-hoo-woah!