CHARLTON HESTON READS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT (THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES)   -   Charlton Heston

YEAR:  ???
LABEL:  Artemis/Vanguard
TRACK LISTING:  The First Day,  Chorus:  My Lord What a Morning,  The Second Day,  The Third Day,  The Fourth Day,  The Fifth Day,  The Sixth Day:  God Created Adam,  The Seventh Day,  Chorus:  Oh Lord What A Beautiful City,  The Garden of Eden,  God Created Eve,  The Serpent Apple and Expulsion,  Chorus:  Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,  Cain and Abel,  Chorus:  Too Late Sinner,  Conclusion Adam and Eve,  Chorus:  Noah Noah Hold On,  God Brings the Flood,  The Flood with Chorus:  Didn't It Rain,  The Rains Abate,  Abraham and Sarah,  Abraham and Isaac,  Chorus:  You Hear the Lambs A-Cryin',  Abraham and Isaac Conclusion,  The Story of Joseph,  Jacob In Israel with Chorus:  We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder,  Israel's People In Egypt,  The Infant Moses,  Chorus:  We Shall Overcome,  Moses Flees Egypt,  The Burning Bush,  The Plagues of Egypt,  Chorus:  Go Down Moses,  The Parting of the Red Sea,  Chorus:  Mary Don't You Weep,  Water from a Rock Manna from Heaven,  Chorus:  Come and Go With Me,  Contention Among the Israelites,  The Ten Commandments; the Golden Calf,  Chorus:  There Is A Balm in Gilead,  The Last Blessing of Moses,  Chorus:  Deep River,  The Death of Moses
IMPRESSIONS:  What could be better than Charlton Heston at his most bombastic paraphrasing the Old Testament while the Robert DeCormier Chorale sings wildly inappropriate negro spirituals which must've confused all hell out of ole Chuck.  Nothing, that's what.  High on the kitsch value probably even at the time, this nebulously released album (whose original release date I can't seem to find anywhere other than the cd re-release date of 2003), Heston probably scared hell out of any small children who happened to listen to this album.  Warm and cuddly he ain't.  This was obviously made post-TEN COMMANDMENTS movie probably in the late 50s - 60s.  Chuck's voice thunders over passage after passage in sometimes quite scary fashion as if he's going to shot anyone who doesn't immediately convert.  The Robert DeCormier Chorale also comes in a little too insistently (probably in self-defence to compete with la Chuck) and the spirituals sometimes come off as strident when a more subtle rendition might've been quite good (I am a fan of spirituals and true gospel music as opposed to that "Christian Contemporary" crap which is obviously the work of the evil one!!!).  Happily, Heston would follow this up with a sequel album "CHARLTON HESTON READS THE LIFE AND PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST" so the fun never ends!  This is the kind of album I often choose to mine for snippets to insert in between songs in my cd mixes to perplex the unaware.  It usually works.
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS:  Oh, come on!
GUEST ARTISTS:  The Robert DeCormier Chorale
FACT SHEET:  God only knows.