Rev. Louis Overstreet

Born in 1921 near Lakeland, Louisiana, Louis Overstreet began singing in gospel quartets at an early age. He was working in a turpentine plant in Dequincy, Louisiana, in 1958, however, when he felt the call to become a full-time minister. Blessed with a ferocious, deep singing voice and accompanying himself on electric guitar and bass drum (playing both at once), the Rev. Louis Overstreet, along with a gospel quartet made up of his four sons, took his own brand of street evangelism around Louisiana and to Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arizona, Nevada, and California before settling in as the pastor of St. Luke's Powerhouse Church of God in Christ in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1961. It was there that Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records recorded Overstreet and his congregation and sons for the 1962 LP Rev. Louis Overstreet. The album was reissued on CD in 1995 with additional tracks recorded at Overstreet's home and a track from a 1963 appearance at the Cabale Coffee House in Berkeley, California. Overstreet passed away in 1980. ~ Steve Leggett