Preacher Jack & Sleepy LaBeef Rock 'N' Roll Preacher (LP, Cut-Out)

Preacher Jack is a wild man on piano. He's a Baptist Barroom Boogie Woogie Preacher with Rock 'N' Roll Soul. And there's a set of lungs behind his preaching-shouting-declaiming style of singing that can fill a room, get it to shaking and—yes, children—put the fear of God in some pretty jaded souls. Of that breed of entertainer who appears before five people and somehow immediately takes on the aura of legend, Preacher is too outrageous to be overlooked or to go unnoticed for long. As a result, he's been somewhat of a legendary character or personality, somebody larger-than-life, around his native Boston area for a long time. Preacher Jack stories abound and the Upper Deck, so called, of the Shipwreck Lounge from which Jack held forth intermittently for nine years, has been duly noted in the annals of local lore.

George Thorogood first told us about the Preacher. Preacher Jack has acquired a rather notorious reputation, not only for his music but also for his one-liners and outrageous stage patter and antics. Having envisioned the Preacher from his name as an older black man deeply into fundamentalist religion, we were more than a little taken aback and further intrigued when George described him as a tall, almost painfully thin, blonde man, only in his mid-thirties, with a gaunt and angular face that's a cross between Jerry Lee Lewis and Mick Jagger, with a mental and physical energy that never lets up for a moment.

On stage, Preacher Jack is about one third piano player, one third charismatic singer and shouter, and one third uncategorizable actor/evangelist/comedian/cultural commentator/madman. Perhaps needless to say, such a performer has a very different impact from one person to another: from inspired angel to evil genius. The most obvious place to begin describing Preacher Jack is with his music itself, since those of you listening to this record will have responses limited to the music, outside of its larger, in-performance context. This is unfortunate, for Preacher must be seen to be believed, as the old cliche goes. But the music by itself still evokes the intense presence and incredible dynamism of the man live.

Boogie Woogie piano-playing is not exactly prevalent today, but Jack Lincoln Coughlin is one of the few of our generation who has schooled himself in that arcane style, brushing off the dust that has settled upon it in recent decades, and re-creating this highly stylized but still vital tradition. Jack's early influences and acknowledged masters are Albert Ammons and Pine Top Smith among others, here reflected for you through "Preacher's Boogie Woogie." A purist in no sense of the word, Preacher is a largely unconscious musician, not knowing how to read or to write music and self-taught on piano. His musical influences, and his development consequently proceeded in whatever direction strongly moved him: everything from Liberate to Mahalia Jackson's one-woman shows to Billy Graham's principal soloist George Beverly Shea to Preacher's Holy Trinity—"Elvis, Hank Williams Sr., and the Great Jerry Lee" (Lewis, that is).

While Jerry Lee is, for Preacher, "The Killer of the Keyboard," he can also appreciate Little Richard and Fats Domino's over-all musical feel. These are not only his sources of musical inspiration, but his Major Prophets, his Voices of Revelation. In his old-fashioned, flowing prose, Preacher often holds forth on-stage about what he feels is the significance of music in our lives. At such times when he speaks intensely about "the power and beauty of music," "Music, the art of the prophets," "the universal language," you get some sense of the ability of music generally and basic rock 'n' roll particularly to change and transform a life: Preacher Jack's. His music carries on the power. While it is impossible for a record to make you aware of the total musical vision that Preacher Jack brings to his audiences, his 1975 composition "The Public Is My Family, And Music Is My Life," gives more than a hint. There you see a little of the side of Preacher Jack that is the frustrated martyr or the potential Billy Graham.

Much of Preacher's performance is high drama, thrusting the message of whatever song at the audience and occasionally embellishing it with spoken asides or even whole scenes from movies like "King Of Kings" or "Bride Of Frankenstein" or "Carrie." And the high drama changes in a flash as Preacher urges his audience, his barroom "congregation" to "Sit back and relax, enjoy your beer, while we here on the stage have your nervous breakdown for you." And sometimes it looks like he really will. From his first awareness of entertaining, as a child at hometown parties or church functions, Jack always conceived of his role as part therapist-counselor-psychodramatist for the members of his audiences. Later, the teenage musical group of which he was a member used to run movies along with their shows, movies which molded Preacher's later stage style. They also used to present live musical horror shows with a Wolfman on guitar, Dracula on drums, and Frankenstein played by Preacher on piano. He continues to love his monsters, his frustrated and misunderstood heroes, for to him, we are all grotesque seekers of the way. For us he sings, "0 Jerusalem, why weep for me? Weep for yourselves and your children, I'm on my way home." Sit back and enjoy the music of the one, the only, Preacher Jack, the Official Barroom Rock 'N' Roll Preacher!