After Decades Lost, Enlightment’s Classic 1984 Gospel Soul Album Finally Resurfaces

As a young man, Larry H. Jordan wasn't a fan of church or gospel music. The former professional R&B singer says that he found the shouting and hollering of traditional black gospel music too shrill and too loud.

But after finding the Lord and becoming an ordained bishop, Jordan and his brother-in-law Frank Tinsley, founded Washington DC soul/gospel outfit Enlightment in the mid 80s. One of the first groups to fuse modern R&B production with gospel themes, Enlightment's 1984 debut album Faith Is the Key used funk and soul in an attempt to reach a larger audience.

Utilising the talents of young vocalist Marilyn Monroe, Jordan and Tinsley produced a smooth and polished album that they hoped would cross into the secular market and radio. Unfortunately, the independent release was torpedoed when both their distributor and pressing plant went out of business.

But after more than three decades as a lost classic –  with copies selling upward to $2000 online – Faith Is the Key has recently been reissued by Nature Sounds.

Listen to the single "Burning Flame" below and read a chat we had with Bishop Jordan.

Noisey: You've said that you wanted to produce a "sophisticated era" of gospel. What did you mean by that? 

Bishop Larry Jordan: I was trying to introduce singing rather than hollering. I wanted the vocals to be more melodic and harmonious. All black gospel music produced at that time was people hollering at the top of their voice.

Has that style always been the tradition of gospel music?

Yes, and it still is. I use the term "sophistication" because being a former professional R&B singer I wanted to hear singing. I wanted it more melodic - a mellow sound to the ears. Those four-part harmonies, with the horns and the rhythms sections that wouldn't overpower the vocals when I mixed it. The sound could then crossover to more than just a black audience.

The record has spent 30 years as a lost classic. Did you ever expect it to be reissued?

I knew it was a classic sound because it was different. It wasn't a mistake — it was planned that way, I studied the market to see what was missing and I was right with the album being able to crossover to blacks, whites, Asians. It's just interesting because I'm being contacted all over the world about this album, I've proved a point that I could bring a different flavour to gospel music. To see it be reissued, it kind of blows me away. It's been 30 years, I knew it was good music but I just thought it was lost and over. I wasn't expecting a reissue of this.

What did you think of copies of the original selling of upwards to $2000? 

It blew me away to be selling the album back in 1984 for 5 dollars. When I first got told that someone was selling my album for $2000, I was like, "what?!" I never expected an album produced in 1984 to be selling for that much money. I guess we have record collectors out there that know good music and pay for it.

The vocals of Sheila Stubblefield, Marilyn Monroe and Rhonda Lathon Holmes are great. How did you discover them?

Marilyn Monroe, who does most of the lead vocals, was a sister of a friend of mine but I'd never heard her before. I auditioned all the women for the project by posting an ad in the Washington Post and Marilyn really stood out. She had the right vocals, the right mentality and right personality for this project.

Who did the cover art?

I went to a graphic artist, his name was Cola. I can't remember his first name. I gave him the idea of what I wanted and I took a picture of the girls sitting down and a picture of me standing up. I wanted the sun, and I wanted us in the clouds. I felt that something a little cartoonish would cause people in the store to look at it more. It was worth it.

What was Northeast DC like back in those days? Was gospel music big? 

Washington DC in those days was a city that was still growing out of Motown. A lot of black people really liked the 80s sound.

What about Go-Go? 

Go-Go music was big in DC but it wasn't my sound. I knew it was going to be in and out. I didn't think from the percussions to the synthesiser-bass sounds, I just thought it was OK. I didn't compete with that because I knew it was a fad. I just wanted to get an audience like you so to get that crossover, I knew that the Go-Go sound wasn't anything I would consider that could carry a sound into the next decade or so.

The production is sharp. Who was responsible for that?

I collaborated with another professional singer, Al Johnson, He was a good producer, I was a good producer. I put all my ideas together, he arranged them for me, I knew how I wanted to mix the album to make it sharp, so yes I was very much responsible for the sound and production. He arranged it, I went in and did the mixing on it with an engineer.

"Burning Flame" was the first single. Can you tell us about the arrangement?

Marilyn had the vocals to blow everyone away. She was a contralto singer, that could hit notes like Minnie Rippleton and come back down and hit a note like Melvin Franklin from The Temptations. Ha-ha. I'm just exaggerating. But seeing her vocal ability I felt that she could compete with the bass runs, the funk patterning I wanted to put in that and how the vocals bounce off the arrangement of the music. I thought that could be a powerful track and that secular stations would play it because it's not obvious that we were bringing you into the faith of Christ. "Burning Flame" gave you more of a love feel about how you have a flame for something or someone. But it's the hook of the song where she actually brings in who she's singing about - which is the Lord.

'Faith is the Key' is available now on vinyl and digital through Nature Sounds. 

Images provided by Nature Sounds.