Bulgarian choirs and Pygmy chanting have found hip followers lately, but gospel music remains ghettoized, ignored as fodder for provincials. That's a drag, because there's no surer American source for exactly the authenticity and naked feeling that sophisticates seek from more exotic sounds. Home-grown and out of this world, gospel is pure passion – which trembles from every measure of Can't Keep It to Myself, Marion Williams' new disc, as does awesome technique.

Singing professionally since 1947, Williams was recently the first singer ever to receive a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, and it's a deserved blessing: Invention, surprise, consistency – the hallmarks of genius – have consistently distinguished her career. The 22 cuts on Can't Keep It to Myself represent a summing up; Williams reprises '50s gems ("Mary Mary," from Langston Hughes' Black Nativity), revives Baptist-Methodist traditionals ("Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen") and debuts originals. It's on her own "Ain't He Good," in fact, that she first comes on with a fervor that's startling; her desire for her divine love is properly charged with erotic power.

If gospel's emotions – exuberance ("Ride in the Clouds"), determination ("Press On 'Like the Bible Said'"), acceptance ("Leave You in the Hands of the Lord") – are more wide-ranging and complex than noninitiates might expect, Williams also demonstrates the form's musical richness. "Come Out the Corner" hints at reggae; "The New Gospel Train" deftly rocks; "Loose the Man" is a cappella elegance. And the hymns' structural solidity allows Williams to take flight: While she demonstrates throughout the clarity and discipline of a classical singer, she slurs and bends notes with the command of a soul performer. On "I Heard the Voice" she sheds language altogether and simply, eloquently, moans.

While every song on it is a gem, Can't Keep It to Myself resonates around one number that's shattering in its conviction: "Live the Life That I Sing About in My Song." And that's fitting – because gospel is, of all musics, emphatically a way of life, an urgent expression of what matters most to its singers, a wellspring of the sort of spiritual nourishment Marion Williams so compellingly provides on Can't Keep It to Myself.

Can't Keep It to Myself is available from Shanachie, P.O. Box 284, Newton, NJ 07860. (RS 677)

PAUL EVANS