TBGB Pick of the Week: May 21, 2012

"Most of All"
forever JONES
From the EMI Gospel CD Musical Revival (2012)
www.emigospel.com

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

While not an official single at the moment, forever JONES' "Most of All" is one of the most enjoyable songs I've heard in any category of music thus far this year.  Its power pop melody combines gospel/CCM techniques with country-rock swagger.

The lyrics are neither sanctimonious or pretentious.  Lead singer Dominique' Jones acknowledges that she, like everyone, doesn't mind being fashionable and "the center of attention," but whatever life offers her pales against the need to be near to God.  "So what if I become a superstar?," she sings.  "It don't mean a thing if I'm not where you are."  Prophetic words, too, as Dominique' Jones has the makings of a music superstar.

"Most of All" has the potential to make some rain in the CCM sphere.

Q & A with GospelTix.com’s Winifred Robinson

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

A discussion with Winifred A. Robinson, Founder and CEO of GospelTix.com.

After nearly 20 years in marketing and advertising, Winifred Robinson traded Corporate America for entrepreneurship.  She organized GospelTix.com in Washington, DC in 2010.  TBGB caught up with her recently to talk about her venture and its value proposition to the Christian community.

TBGB: What inspired you to start GospelTix.com?

Winifred A. Robinson
Founder/CEO - Gospeltix.com

WR:  My background is in marketing and advertising, and I have a lot of experience with product development, including website development.  I wanted to use my talents to serve the Lord, and I wasn’t really being fulfilled in Corporate America.  I was doing well, earning a very decent salary, but I wasn’t being fulfilled.  So I started praying on it.  I paid attention to the marketplace and decided to start a company that could be beneficial to the Kingdom of God.  

TBGB: Did you spend a lot of time thinking about the company, or was there a moment when it struck you as, “This is what I need to do?"

WR: There was absolutely such a moment!  After writing my skills down and looking at the desires of my heart, I thought, “Is there a company online that tells the world what is going on in the gospel community, the Christian community?”  If I wanted to go out with my family, where could I go that I know would be clean and fun, and Christian-based?  I didn’t find a lot of that online.

I then thought: “What if there was a company that could not only advertise what was going on but could also help with ticket sales?”  And that’s the part that really struck me hard.  It was like, “Oh my God, this is like a Ticketmaster!  How could I possibly do that?”  I did the research and only came up with two companies in the marketplace.  I thought, “Two companies, okay.  Well, there’s more than one supermarket.  There’s more than one department store.”  This is what I felt the community needed.  I put on my new product development hat and my program management hat, and used all of my marketing and advertising skills to create GospelTix.com.

TBGB:  When did you start the company?

WR:  I launched the GospelTix.com website on May 31, 2010.  Our first radio commercial in the Washington (DC) metropolitan area went out on June 1, 2010. 

TBGB: What does GospelTix.com offer?

WR: GospelTix.com offers churches and promoters of gospel events—any type of event that is clean—the opportunity to sell tickets to the event online, to make it convenient to patrons to purchase tickets that are delivered to their computer immediately upon the purchase process. 

We also offer customers the opportunity for their event to be Googled and found, seen and heard anytime, day or night.  When you purchase a product page through GospelTix.com, it is your on-line advertising space.  So if you don’t have a website dedicated to your particular project, and you need to have an online presence to advertise the event, GospelTix.com provides advertising space as well as online ticketing. 

We also offer customers a chance to promote their program through social media, via Facebook or Twitter.  We also promote events on LinkedIn from time to time.  We do e-blasts on behalf of our clients.  We do voice-overs.  They are just like radio commercials: a very high-quality, professionally created voice-over that can be placed on the product page so visitors can listen as well as read about your event. 

We also have a newsletter to promote Christian-owned businesses, and we highlight independent gospel music artists in a section called “Independent Spotlight.”  The newsletter helps keep people connected to the community and with what’s going on at GospelTix.com.  The newsletter also communicates what’s happening with kingdom kids, with children raised in the Christian way.  That section of the newsletter is called “Christian Kids Rock.” 

TBGB: What you are saying is that GospelTix.com is a one-stop for promotion and ticket sales.  A group or promoter could contact you and get pretty much everything in the way of marketing and promotion.

WR: Yes. 

TBGB: What has been the response thus far?

WR: The response thus far has been good.  As a start-up company, we can never do enough marketing.  Sometimes there are a lot of active projects on the site and sometimes there are not as many.  I believe it’s a function of marketing.

On June 1 of this year, we are having a two-year anniversary celebration event.  I also have a background in event production, something I was doing simultaneously while working in Corporate America. So GospelTix.com now has a branded event in the Washington metro area called “Fantastic Friday.”  Right now, it’s a comedy series called “Pass the Mic.”  It’s a hilarious show designed to take the edge off of the work week.  Folks can come out with their families and have a great time.  So we are in the event production business as well!

TBGB: What are your goals moving forward?

WR:  To position GospelTix.com as the number one resource for the Christian community.  But I can’t do it by myself.  I’m looking forward to establishing very strategic relationships with various organizations to make that happen.

TBGB:  What got you interested in gospel music in the first place?

WR: I was raised in the church, so I love gospel music!  I grew up listening to all types of music, but gospel music has a healing mechanism for the soul.  Gospel music is about the glory of God.  There’s no other music like it.  When you listen to gospel music, it is a cut above the rest.   It’s special, it’s sweet, and it has a healing quality.

For more information, visit www.gospeltix.com.

Donna Summer's Christian Music Connection

Since Donna Summer, the "Queen of Disco," passed away last week, several people have asked me about her sacred music roots.  Below is a Huffington Post article on her Christian music connection.

Donna Summer - Gospel Music

Here's a video of Donna testifying and singing "Riding Through the Storm":

The New Converted Voices - A New Beginning

The New Converted Voices

A New Beginning

Vision Records (2011)

www.cdbaby.com/cd/newconvertedvoices

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

The New Converted Voices are a quartet from Tupelo, Mississippi.  Organized in 1989 by Rev. Patrick Whitfield, the group benefited from a close working relationship with Lee Williams & The Spiritual QC's, who helped them travel and sing across the South.

The New Converted Voices’ latest CD, A New Beginning, delivers the goods that quartet enthusiasts want to hear from their heroes: no-nonsense Christian lyrics, impassioned traditional singing, tight harmony, and one or two good ol’ drive-tempo songs with backbeats and extended vamps.

The two drive songs, “Good God” and “He’ll Make a Way,” turn out to be the album’s best selections.  "He'll Make a Way" recommends bringing to Jesus whatever troubles one has.  The single, “I Call Him Jesus” is another fine track.  It features Lisa Knowles contributing her distinctive quartet-molded vocal delivery to the mix.

“That’s Alright” reworks and gospelizes the Impressions’ hit of the same name.  Lead singer Tobie Blanch acknowledges that although he doesn’t have a fancy car or a home on a hill, and (to add insult to injury) “everywhere we go to sing, sometimes people don’t always know who we are…we got a mansion if we keep doing His will.” 

On the subject of the mansion, the quartet’s ballad “Home with Jesus” imagines the place beyond the sky where the streets are paved with gold and there are no more troubles, including no sugar diabetes.  “Perfect People” admits that none of us are perfect, and there are too many hypocrites to contend with, but “the only time we should look down is when we lend a helping hand.”  Amen.

A New Beginning finds the New Converted Voices putting their best foot forward, so that the next time they go to sing, people will know who they are.

Three of Five Stars

Picks: “Good God,” “He’ll Make a Way.”

Sean C. Johnson - Simply a Vessel Vol. 3: Surrender All

Sean C. Johnson

Simply a Vessel Vol. 3: Surrender All

www.SeanCJohnson.com

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

TBGB first encountered Sean C. Johnson when the Tampa, Florida-born singer released Simply A Vessel Vol. 2: Faithful.  He is back with Volume 3: Surrender All, released April 3.

The third volume continues the “neo soul gospel” of Johnson’s previous opus.  He is a talented vocalist who makes singing seem effortless.  His go-to groove is a finger-popping bounce, and some selections sound like TSOP sat in on part of the session.  The current single, “Who,” is an ideal example of Johnson’s rhythmic but unobtrusive approach to praise and Biblical teaching.

The lyrics on Surrender All feel like conversations with God, whether in worship (“Sweeter”), supplication (“Father I” – nice falsetto runs on this one), or relief for a God who saves us even when we don’t deserve it (“Still Breathing”).

The singer’s sweet spot, however, is his edgy hip hop experimentation.  On “Gonna Be,” Johnson teams with Cam, Zack Gaddis and Dre Murray to evoke a bit of Cee Lo Green.  “MLMX,” featuring Apoc, is a no-nonsense rap about a broken generation that “don’t know how to act.”  Johnson feels responsible for rallying the church troops, and especially today’s parents, to help right the wrong, because “Martin Luther, Malcolm X, they ain’t never coming back.”  On “Pass Me Not,” Johnson embeds the classic hymn in hip hop soup as he asks the Lord to keep him strong at a time when things are not making sense.

Speaking of return visits to TBGB, the fetching vocalist Adrianne Archie, whose Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength was reviewed here three years ago, joins Johnson and I AM Franklin on the mellow mover, “Stop and Think.”  Their styles are so similar they make for a pleasant combo.

Simply a Vessel Vol. 3: Surrender All retains the positive vibes of the former album, but its flights of compelling hip hop make the overall project stronger than its predecessor.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “Gonna Be,” “MLMX.”

Apostle J.L. Cash & Praise - I Got a Feelin'

Apostle J.L. Cash & Praise

I Got a Feelin’

MCG Records (2009)

www.mcgrecords.com

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

For me, the penultimate moment of the live appearance by Apostle J.L. Cash & Praise at the Temple of Deliverance COGIC in Memphis was when Apostle Cash, the family patriarch, pulled out his left-handed, shiny, green Gretsch electric guitar, lovingly called “MaMa.” 

After drawing some bluesy licks out of the Gretsch, Apostle Cash turned it around to show the audience the color photo of his mother that covers the back of the guitar body.  Later, guitar in hand, Cash participated in a tongue-in-cheek chat with Mama, gone on home.  He’d say how her children were doing on earth, and Mama, anthropomorphized as the guitar, answered back in sassy riffs.

If you have attended the Gospel Brunch at the Orlando, Florida House of Blues recently, you’ve seen Apostle J.L. Cash & Praise in person.  If not, the CD and DVD of I Got a Feelin’ are the next best thing.  

Apostle Cash leads a team of eight female vocalists, three musicians, and two lithe praise dancers.  At times, the group sounds like a quartet and at other times it sounds like a contemporary gospel ensemble.  Together, they provide sugar and spice: sweet harmonies with hard-singing leads.  

The hard-singing leads are Prophetess Darleena Wright, Apostle Cash, and his daughter, Prophetess April Cash.  Wright squalls an alternate ending to MercyMe’s hit, “I Can Only Imagine,” and April boils over on “He Keeps Blessing Me.”  The main lead vocalist, Apostle Cash possesses that hoarse, raspy delivery characteristic of a fiery preacher.  He also likes to scat in that deep, chesty Rance Allen manner.

It is when the group goes old school that the music really sizzles.  Dorsey’s “The Lord Will Make a Way” gets a funky treatment topped with Memphis-style sauciness.  The session’s best two songs also classify as traditional: “What Will You Be Doin’ (When Jesus Come)” is driven by a rockabilly-style rhythm that moves along like a locomotive.  “Washed by the Water” is a ballad that argues that hard times serve to cleanse the soul and strengthen one's resolve.

 

The DVD contains two ad hoc medleys of classic hymns; neither are on the CD.  Likewise, the CD includes the ensemble’s cover of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” and the complete version of the deep bluesy “Help Me Jesus.” 

I Got a Feelin’ is best experienced by viewing the DVD because the program flows with more consistency, while the CD scatters the sweet songs among the spicy.  And you get to see the MaMa guitar, a must.

CD: Three of Five Stars

DVD: Four of Five Stars

Picks: “What Will You Be Doin’ (When Jesus Come),” “Washed in the Water.”

Eddie GM - Elephant Song

Eddie GM

Elephant Song

PPM Records (2002)

www.cdbaby.com/cd/eddiegm2

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

Chicago gospel legend Dolores “Honey” Sykes of the Duncanaires passed this CD along to me.  It’s by pianist and baritone gospel balladeer Ed Robinson who accompanied the Duncanaires in the 1960s and is now making music in Detroit.

The album's title, Elephant Song, telegraphs the fact that it is anything but a conventional project.  The song selection ranges from gospel funk to traditional gospel to Nigerian harmonies and rhythms.  Robinson, rebranded as “Eddie GM,” describes the CD as “ahead of its time.”  Although it was recorded ten years ago, Elephant Song still basks under its own sun.

For example, “I Belong to God” and “I Am” contain passages sung like funky chants, while a slamming bass guitar and squealing sax accompany “A Fresh Anointing.”  House beats propel “On My Mind.”  “He Understands” contains traditional lyrics dipped in a funky musical brew with a sanctified chaser for its vamp.

My taste runs to the CD’s more straightforward traditional pieces: Eddie GM’s piano, guitar and organ-driven section of the spiritual, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot;” and the bluesy “He’s Fixing It Right Now,” so old-school it sounds plucked from the Duncanaires’ trad repertory.

The title track—a faith-based fable about an elephant and an ant—is part of the Nigerian-inspired offerings accompanied by Chief Dr. Uwa Osimiri and the Otra Singers.  “Nara Onyiye Anyi” is an Ibo prayer song.  Anyone who enjoys the vocal harmony and mesmerizing rhythm of African song will enjoy this piece.

It’s sure a far cry from “One Step Closer,” but Elephant Song depicts the experimental side of Ed Robinson who has absorbed musical influences from around the world and is not afraid to use them.

Three of Five Stars

Picks: “Swing Low (Part I),” “He’s Fixing It Right Now.”

Deitrick Haddon Presents Voices of Unity - A Beautiful Soul

Detrick Haddon Presents Voices of Unity

A Beautiful Soul: Music Inspired by the Motion Picture

Tyscot Records 2012

www.tyscot.com

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

Am I the only one who hears musical similarities between Deitrick Haddon and Prince?

This thought came to me once again only minutes into the companion CD to Deitrick Haddon’s new major motion picture, A Beautiful Soul.  The complex, hard-charging, and electric mixture of gospel, R&B, and hip hop evokes the passion of Prince in his periods immediately before and immediately after Purple Rain.  The palpable thrust of Haddon’s music and his ease with experimentation, while staying relevant to his audience, are also Prince trademarks.  

A Beautiful Soul’s current radio single, “No Betta,” trades off of the popularity of its lead vocalists, Haddon and Faith Evans, but the title track and “Love Did It” are the CD's most compelling selections.  With a strong melody and banging beat, “A Beautiful Soul” muses on the goodness people have bottled up inside, a soul that, Haddon sings, was “never meant to be contained.”  “Love Did It” is comfortably flowing power pop that showcases Candy West’s lovely vocals.  Sean Hardin and Jor’el Quinn’s “Never Hurt Again” is also worth putting on the iPod.

Candy West is among a battery of guest artists on the project.  Others include Canton Jones, Kierra Sheard, the aforementioned Faith Evans, and Jason Champion.  Interestingly, some of the less established artists such as West and Adia caught my attention most especially because they are truly compelling singers.  Regula and Joint Heirs are other indie artists (with reviews on The Black Gospel Blog, I might add) who share their gifts on the project.

Many of the songs echo the film’s premise of the lost soul who has to endure a significant trial to find his way back to the Jericho Road.  For example, on “Go To Church,” Bam & Jabrea ask: “Is there room in the church for a sinner like me?”  “New Life” is the unshackled freedom to declare a new way of living after finding Jesus.

The A Beautiful Soul CD may have been inspired by the film, but it stands on its own.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “A Beautiful Soul,” “Love Did It.”

TBGB Pick of the Week: May 14, 2012

“Praise Him”
Angela “Missy” Billups

From Standing on the Promises

itunes.apple.com/us/artist/angela-missy-billups/id158230092

Missy Billups is not all hat and no gospel singer.  

The New Yorker's single, “Praise Him,” is a song of gratitude fitted with shouting shoes that stomp out the beat the old-school way.  As she thanks God for what He’s done for her, Missy sings the Biblical apologetic for gospel music, Pentecostal-style: praising with the “sound of the trumpet,” “stringed instruments,” “dance” and the “cymbal.”  

“Praise Him” will have handkerchiefs waving and congregants throwing sanctified shapes in the aisles.