Centennial of First Deliverance Founder Headlines March 2 "Gospel Memories"

Tune to 88.7 WLUW Chicago Sunday morning, March 2 from 3:00 to 7:30 a.m. Central Time for this month’s live broadcast of “Gospel Memories”: the soundtrack of That Old Time Religion.

Not in Chicago? No problem. Go to http://www.wluw.org/, click the Listen Live button, and enjoy “Gospel Memories” from wherever you are!

Highlights of the March 2 Broadcast:

Benediction: “The Lord’s Prayer” – First Church of Deliverance Choir

A celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rev. Clarence H. Cobbs, founder and pastor of Chicago’s historic First Church of Deliverance. He was born Feb. 29, 1908 in Memphis.

A music enthusiast, Rev. Cobbs maintained a music department to rival those of other churches. Among the many gospel pioneers who passed through First Deliverance were Sallie Martin, Kenneth Morris, Ralph GoodPasteur, R.L. Knowles, Julia Mae Kennedy, Irma Gwynn, Prof. L. Stanley Davis, Myrtle Jackson, Elizabeth Hall, Rev. Jerry Goodloe, Rev. Lucius Hall…the choir even sang with Nat King Cole! The church had its own music publishing house, and its Sunday evening radio broadcast – among the first – is the stuff of legend. Bishop Otto Houston is pastor of First Deliverance today.

Words and Music at 5:00 a.m.:
Marc Lindy, producer and host of CFRO Vancouver’s “Gospel Train” radio program interviews legendary quartet singer Arthur Lee “Bob” Beatty. Now in his nineties, Beatty spent decades singing in some of the top gospel quartets, including membership in the Heavenly Gospel Singers, Violinaires, Trumpets of Joy, and the Four Gospel Knights. Needless to say, Beatty is a gospel music treasure.

Cast your vote to induct Bob Beatty in the International Gospel Music Hall of Fame and Museum at: http://www.votebobbeatty.com/. Hurry -- balloting ends March 7!
Photo above by Mike Bonner - Spartanburg Herald-Journal

Words and Music at 6:00 a.m.:
Bob Marovich interviews Deacon Reuben Burton of the Victory Travelers. Deacon Burton will talk about the origins of the Victory Travelers, the quartet's early recordings, and the 25th anniversary reissue of He’s a God, an LP they cut for Rapture Records in 1983.

From the Vault:
Golden Eagle Gospel Singers
Professor Hull’s Anthems of Joy
The Mighty Wonders of Aquasco, MD – hear both sides of the 45 rpm recording that was showcased during the National Public Radio “Fresh Air” interview of Professor Robert Darden and the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project at Baylor University.

Plus recordings by pioneers and legends such as:

Dewey Young and the Flying Clouds
Miami Ziontones
Anna Crockett Ford
Staple Singers
Evelyn Gay
Brooklyn All-Stars
Prophet Jones
Amazing Farmer Singers
Rance Allen Group
(Daddy) Grace Singers
CBS Trumpeteers
Swan Silvertones
Rev. Columbus Mann (early Tamla/Motown gospel track)
Mattie Moss Clark and the Southwest Michigan State Choir
Blendwrights
Pentecostal Mass Choir of Chicago

…and much more!

So tune in and turn on to “Gospel Memories”…for the music that moves you and makes you move.

Special thanks to Marvin Lyles of Gary, Indiana’s WGVE 88.7 FM "Gospel Sunrise" and Pastor Cornell Lewis of WZHR Inspiration 1400 AM in Florida’s Tampa Bay area for allowing “Gospel Memories” and me into their program schedules during the past month.

A Second Coming
Bryan Wilson
Bryan’s Songs Records/CE Music 2008
http://www.bryanwilson.com/

In 1994, twelve year-old boy soprano Bryan Wilson stepped up to the recording microphone to lead “His Eye is On the Sparrow” with the Mississippi Children’s Choir. When Wilson finished, his world changed. The astounding popularity of the recording brought the pre-teen Dove and Stellar Award nominations, recordings, and tours with top-shelf gospel artists.

Then Wilson’s voice changed.

Alas, it happens to all young men at one time or another, including James Cleveland, who was once a boy soprano in Thomas Dorsey’s Pilgrim Baptist Church gospel choir. After his voice changed, Cleveland joined the Lux Singers with Bertha Melson and Clay Evans, and became a cause celebre in Chicago’s gospel community.

For Wilson, it was off to Princeton University to get an education.

Wilson is back on the gospel highway and his first CD since 1999, A Second Coming, is just that. Whereas gospel enthusiasts will recall Wilson’s penchant for traditional gospel, his new CD blends the sacred with more of a Top 40 urban contemporary feel. Actually, Wilson’s elastic voice and his focus on here-and-now lyrics reminds me of J Moss. The title track is especially catchy and “Still My Father/God’s There” is an audience rouser.

That is not to say that traditionalists won’t find something on A Second Coming to their liking. “Sun is Shining” has an infectious, sing-along ‘70s soul groove, and “A Secret Place” – the finest track on the project – is slow, melismatic, and moving. During this particular performance, the listener is drawn into a dramatic and intimate worship moment, shifting from voyeur to active participant by the conclusion.

The production is raw and edgy, but at times a tad too percussive and heavy-handed on the upper range. Overall, however, A Second Coming is a promising and enjoyable project by a young man who clearly has talent and is in search of his own unique place in gospel music. In other words, if A Second Coming serves to bring Bryan Wilson back into the fray, his next project will undoubtedly showcase his definitive style.

Two and a Half of Four Stars

TBGB Pick of the Week: February 25, 2008

“Sweeping Through the City”
Shirley Caesar
From the Shu-Bel/Light CD After 40 Years...Still Sweeping Through the City
http://www.light-street.com/

The energetic Pastor Shirley Caesar reprises a memorable moment from her days with the Caravans on a live version of “Sweeping Through the City,” aka “I Won’t Be Back.” Caesar and her backing choir take “Sweeping Through the City” slow and bluesy at first, then wind up the tempo into a hand-clapping roust that is the very definition of gospel singing.

This performance, from Caesar's new project, After 40 Years…Still Sweeping Through the City demonstrates without a doubt that she has all the sass, all the swagger, and every ounce of vocal power that she evinced on her first solo outing, 1967’s I’ll Go (Hob), and even further back, in '62 when she led "I Won't Be Back" for the Caravans.

The full-length album version of the song on the new CD contains Caesar’s superb duet with Joe Ligon from the Mighty Clouds of Joy. And during a live appearance at Chicago’s Triedstone Full Gospel Baptist Church last Friday evening to promote her album, Pastor Caesar (right) was once again joined by gospel legends; this time it was Tommies alum and soloist Leanne Faine and an equally hard-singing Lemmie Battles (below). Together, they did an extended version of “Sweeping” that climaxed with Caesar’s trademark holy dancing.



The audience was on its feet, including Lorenza Brown Porter, founding member of the Argo Singers (another legendary hard-singing female group), who encouraged the trio on from the second row.

TBGB Reviews...Jonathan Nelson

Right Now Praise
Jonathan Nelson featuring Purpose
Integrity Music 2008
www.integrityMusic.com/JonathanNelson

Stellar Award-winning songwriter, praise and worship leader, and “PK” Jonathan Nelson of Baltimore grew up in a singing family and attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, but received his first real taste of professional singing while backing Karen Clark-Sheard. The singer was to appear at his father’s Greater Bethlehem Temple Church and needed backing singers. Nelson and a group of his friends stepped in to assist, and the rest is history.

Right Now Praise is Nelson’s first project, a live recording that showcases his affection for a variety of sacred sounds: from urban inspirational to gospel to praise & worship, though no matter the style, the songs and melodies are simple and encourage singing along. The first few songs are urban inspirational numbers featuring energetic antiphonal singing by Nelson and Purpose, who are backed by a wall of instruments (Hallelujah! Real horns!), with the first single, “My Name is Victory,” a fine example. “Drench My Heart” spotlights Purpose, which navigates cascading harmonic lines deftly and delivers a hypnotic, meditative lyric to boot.

About halfway through the project, however, the low rumble of a Hammond organ changes the character of the session. With “Yes Out There,” and a medley of hymns, it becomes all about traditional gospel. Sheri Jones-Moffett, an excellent female singer, leads “Yes Out There” (“Yes in the house!”) and then Nelson cools everything down with expressively reverent readings of "Fill My Cup, Lord" and “I Need Thee Every Hour.” The traditional portion is the finest part of the entire project.

Later, the group demonstrates its praise & worship side with a string of simple, melodic songs that blend one into the other. One of them, “How Great is Our God,” reprises the hypnotic, mantra-like lyric of “Drench My Heart.”

Fans of Israel and New Breed in particular will enjoy Right Now Praise, an auspicious debut for Jonathan Nelson and Purpose.

Three of Four Stars

TBGB Reviews...The Georgia Mass Choir

Tell It
The Georgia Mass Choir
Savoy Records 2007
www.malaco.com

While the big gospel choirs have lost market share to the current crop of small groups, never fear: there are several powerful choruses that remain forces with which to be reckoned when it comes to gospel hits. The top choirs include the mighty Chicago Mass Choir, Mississippi Mass Choir, Wilmington-Chester Mass Choir, Dr. Charles G. Hayes & the Warriors, and Rev. Milton Biggham’s Georgia Mass Choir.

Georgia Mass’s latest project, Tell It, on Savoy Records – the principal force in promoting gospel choruses since Rev. Lawrence Roberts’ Angelic Choir signed with the label in the early 1960s – provides more of that voluminous sound that has been its calling card for the past 25 years.

The title track on Tell It is a radio-friendly energizer, though the hand clapper “Holy Ghost” is (and should be) the big hit, with a quintessential choir arrangement and mesmerizing vamp. “He’s a Battle Axe” continues in the traditional mold, but it’s more of a bouncy Baptist hymn than a Pentecostal shouter. Regardless, Georgia Mass always sounds best when working out of the traditional songbook, whether uptempo or in a slow and bluesy mood, as on “I Got a Right to Praise the Lord” and Dottie Rambo's “I Go to the Rock," a song it showcased to the entire world in 1996 when it backed Whitney Houston on The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack.

The Georgia Mass dugout of hard-singing female leads is plenty strong, too.

Tell It demonstrates that while gospel music continues to evolve musically and lyrically, the Georgia Mass Choir is firmly rooted in the classic choir sound. And sticking to their knitting hasn't hurt them any, either, as far as I can tell.

Three of Four Stars

TBGB Pick of the Week: February 17, 2008

“Got Fruit”
Yunek
From the CD Exodus Three:Seventeen
www.yunekmusic.com

Twenty-six year-old Jessica Joseph of Houston goes by Yunek (pronounced “Unique,” and not like a village in Eastern Europe). A semi-finalist in the Gospel Dream competition, Yunek’s most recent single, “Got Fruit,” bounces brightly along like a neo-soul track by Lauren Hill or India.Arie, both cited as among Yunek's many musical influences. Listening to this song leaves no question as to why the young lady captivated the Gospel Dream judges with her style and lyricism.

Speaking of lyrics, the lines in "Got Fruit" trip over Yunek's tongue with finesse and confidence. Their intricacy will provoke young listeners to want to learn them…which is what any singer/songwriter wants to have happen.

TBGB Reviews...Sons of the Soul Revivers

Golden Nuggets
The Sons of the Soul Revivers
Alpha 7 Ministries 2007
www.alpha7ministries.com

Much in the tradition of the Sons of the (Dixie Humming) Birds, the Sons of the Soul Revivers are in the family business. Since 1970, the quartet has continued and expanded the quartet-singing tradition of their fathers, uncles, and other relatives, the San Francisco-based Soul Revivers.

Sons vocalist James Morgan told TBGB that the original Soul Revivers organized in the late 1950s or early 1960s in San Francisco as the Truetone Gospel Singers. Comprised of members of the Morgan Family as well as in-laws and friends, the Truetones did not make any recordings but rather traveled and performed in and around the Bay Area and other parts of California. In the 1970s, the Truetone Gospel Singers changed personnel and became the Soul Revivers, continuing to sing regionally in churches and auditoriums. The quartet officially quit in the 1980s.

The Sons of the Soul Revivers quartet also calls the Bay Area home and is comprised of vocalists James and Dwayne Morgan, Walter Morgan on lead guitar, Sydney Morgan on bass, Kelvin Morgan on Keyboards, Dartagnon Tabor on drums, and Darryl Stickman on second lead guitar. Formed in 1970, the group first imitated the major quartets of the day, such as the Pilgrim Travelers and Pilgrim Jubilees, but by the latter part of the decade had developed their own sound. James said that even though they have their own distinctive singing style and write their own songs, they remain true to the traditional sound.

Unlike their precesessor group, the Sons do travel nationally and have recorded. Their latest project for Alpha 7 Ministries is Golden Nuggets, a project brimming with traditional quartet singing enveloped in a laid-back groove. The finest tracks are the project’s two workouts, “When I Get Home,” and “Because of Calvary,” the latter sporting stave-topping falsetto notes by the lead singer. And “Shine” is really “This Little Light of Mine” with funky bass riffs that will delight fans of 1970s gospel funk. Speaking of bass, the production could stand a little more bass to balance things out, but it does not detract from the overall enjoyment of the performance.

Listening to the Sons of the Soul Revivers is like digging into a home-cooked meal.

James reported that another CD is on its way by the end of Summer 2008. Meanwhile, if you want to see as well as hear the quartet in performance, visit YouTube:

Sons of the Soul Revivers on YouTube

Two and a Half of Four Stars

Chicago Gospel Music Feeling Tug of Modern Influences

A blog article written by Peter Holderness for the Chicago Methods Reporter provides a thoughtful and provocative exposition of the clash between the old and the new in gospel music. The conflict between traditional and contemporary is certainly not new to gospel music; this is just the latest example.

The piece features Robert Wooten, Sr. who founded the Wooten Chorale Ensemble, Chicago's second community choir (the Tommies were the first by one year).

Click below to link to the article:

Gospel Music in Chicago

TBGB Reviews...WOW Gospel 2008

WOW Gospel 2008
Various Artists
Zomba Gospel Group 2008
www.wowgospelonline.com

For the past eleven years, I have looked forward to each February with eager anticipation, knowing that the latest installment of the WOW Gospel series was due for release. This double-CD gospel music yearbook, the sister series to Christian music’s WOW project, has never disappointed me, serving not only as a bellwether of the musical evolution of gospel, but also as a compilation of the songs that burned up the radio in the past year.

The 2008 installment, released today (Feb. 12) may well be the best ever. It features all the biggies: Kirk Franklin’s disco-inspired “Looking for You,” J Moss’s “I’m Not Perfect,” Israel and New Breed’s “With Long Life,” Fred Hammond’s “This is the Day,” and living legend Tramaine Hawkins’ “I Never Lost My Praise.” The Clark Sisters’ “Blessed and Highly Favored,” now blessed and highly favored by both the Stellar and Grammy Awards, is present, too, as are lovely inspirational songs by Smokie Norful (“Where Would I Be?”) and CeCe Winans (“All That I Need”). A bluesy Mary Mary track, “Yesterday,” was new to me, and demonstrates that even the most contemporary of groups can dig deep down and render a heart-stopping, soulful gospel ballad when the spirit beckons.

A great contribution to gospel music history would be to go back and produce WOW Gospel compilations for each year from 1950 to 1997. Imagine WOW Gospel 1950...featuring tracks by the Original Five Blind Boys, Pilgrim Travelers, Brother Joe May, the Ward Singers, the Soul Stirrers, Dixie Hummingbirds, Roberta Martin Singers, Mahalia Jackson and the Davis Sisters!

Unlike previous years, WOW Gospel 2008 does not include the New Artist Spotlight, and Monday morning quarterbacks like me could compile a “what’s missing” list, with Marvin Sapp’s smash hit “Never Would've Made It” and Maurette Brown Clark’s “One God” two curious omissions. Regardless, whether you are a gospel enthusiast or a novice, WOW Gospel 2008 – like its ten predecessors – is a compulsory purchase. And the series regularly overdelivers, promising 30 tracks and giving you more (this year you get 33).

WOW Gospel 2008 is gospel music’s audio summary, a retrospective of the year’s hits as well as an almanac on where the music is going. If you are more of a visual type, fear not: the companion DVD is available, too.

Four of Four Stars

Soweto Gospel Choir Takes Home Second Grammy

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that, in addition to the American gospel artists who took Grammies home on Sunday, the Soweto Gospel Choir from South Africa also took home a Grammy, their second.

The world-renowned 26-member group that was formed in 2002 received the Best Traditional World Music Album honor for African Spirit.

Congratulations to the Soweto Gospel Choir! Amandla!

Gospel Results from 50th Grammy Awards

Congratulations to the Clark Sisters for taking home the hardware in three of the six black gospel-related categories -- and in all the categories in which they were nominated -- at Sunday's 50th Annual Grammy Awards.

It was a repeat of the group's sweep of this year's Stellar Awards, which to me suggests that Grammy voters are better educated on gospel music than in prior years. This year's nominees were the strongest yet.

Here is a rundown of the black gospel-related awardees in each category, courtesy of grammy.com:

Best Gospel Performance
(Tie)
"Blessed & Highly Favored"
The Clark Sisters
Track from: Live - One Last Time
[EMI Gospel]

"Never Gonna Break My Faith"
Aretha Franklin & Mary J. Blige (Featuring The Harlem Boys Choir)
Track from: Bobby: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
[Island Def Jam]



Best Gospel Song
"Blessed & Highly Favored"
Karen Clark-Sheard, songwriter (The Clark Sisters)
Track from: Live - One Last Time
[EMI Gospel; Publisher: K. Sheard's Melody]


Best Rock Or Rap Gospel Album
Before The Daylight's Shot
Ashley Cleveland
[204 Records]


Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album
A Deeper Level
Israel And New Breed
[Integrity Music]


Best Traditional Gospel Album
Live - One Last Time
The Clark Sisters
[EMI Gospel]


Best Contemporary R&B Gospel Album
Free To Worship
Fred Hammond
[Verity]

TBGB Reviews...The Reunion: Live In Chicago - Side A

Darius Brooks Presents…
The Reunion: Live in Chicago – Side A
JMG 2007
http://www.journeymusicgroup.com/

When Milton Brunson organized the Thompson Community Singers in 1948 while attending Chicago’s McKinley High School, he could hardly have imagined how his community gospel choir would inspire the establishment of similar organizations throughout the country, much less that members of his group would still be captivating audiences sixty years later.

Yet the Thompson Community Singers – named for Brunson’s pastor in ’48, the Rev. Eugene Thompson, and now affectionately known as the “Tommies” – was the first community gospel choir in the country. Beginning in 1963, the choir released a collection of albums and hit singles that secured the group’s place in gospel music history. Their “I’ll Trade a Lifetime” (Hob) is among the finest gospel choir recordings of all time. Although Brunson’s death in 1997 rent the choir asunder by 2000, alumnus Darius Brooks gathered former members for reunion recordings to coincide with the choir’s 60th anniversary in 2008.

The first installment, “Side A,” revisits the Tommies’ 1980s and 1990s victories, a time when the group’s traditional sound was merged with contemporary arrangements and melodies. Songs from this era represented on “Side A” include 1986’s classic “Safe in His Arms,” reprised nearly note for note by Beatrice Gardner and Pamela Crawford. Leanne Faine, a human ball of energy, demonstrates her incendiary Chicago-style singing on 1987’s “Guess You’re Wondering,” while another equally compelling and fiery Tommies star, Kim McFarland, performs “For the Good of Them.” Brooks himself contributes a bluesy vocal on “If I Be Lifted.”

All but two songs on the project are Brooks’ own. One that isn’t – “Jesus is a Rock” (in the project’s opening medley) – comes from the creative pen of another Tommies product, Percy Bady, an accomplished songwriter, producer, and artist. In many respects, the time period covered on “Side A” could be called the Tommies’ “Brooks-Bady” era.

Overall, the reunion choir has proven that a fountain of youth exists, as it sounds every bit as good as it did in the Eighties. Prime proof of this can be heard on the project’s best track, “Available to You,” the title track of the Tommies’ 1988 album.

The quality CD booklet highlights the Tommies’ many awards and achievements, and intersperses photos of the choir in performance mode.

Are we looking forward to Side B? Need you ask? The follow-up will be released April 2008. Meanwhile, God rest ye Milton Brunson. Your legacy continues sixty years on.

Three of Four Stars

TBGB Reviews...The Big DooWopper

Feel the Spirit – A Tribute to Mahalia
The Big DooWopper
Delmark Records 2002
www.delmark.com

As Opal Louis Nations counsels in the liner notes to Feel the Spirit, don’t let Cornell H. Williams's nickname throw you. Williams earned the moniker as a young man for his habit of humming and singing along with the vocal harmony songs he loved.

But Williams grew up in the church – Chicago’s historic Greater Harvest Baptist Church – and loves traditional gospel music. He renders gospel songs in a voice that puts the listener in mind of 1920s guitar evangelist Blind Willie Johnson had Willie been a high tenor (Nations deems Big DooWopper’s voice “iron-encased”). And on some tracks, the Big DooWopper sings all the parts, recalling similar, and equally effective, multi-track experiments in the 1950s by Doris Akers, Clara Ward and Patti Page. The finest track on Feel the Spirit is Big DooWopper’s one-man recreation of Mahalia and the Southern Harmonaires (Larks) two-part “In the Upper Room,” copied note for note, down to David McNeil's bass parts.

In fact, Williams’s covers of Mahalia’s big hits – most from her Columbia sessions – pretty much follow the originals to the letter. He even copies Mahalia’s memorable vocal techniques, such as her distinctive diction (“God put a rainbow’d in the sky”), and her penchant for breathlessly slicing the ends off lyrics on mid-tempo songs such as “Dig a Little Deeper,” “Didn’t it Rain,” and “Walk in Jerusalem.” The Hammond B3 organ and piano – also multi-tracked by the Big DooWopper – follow the original charts to spec. The result is a rootsy throwback to gospel music Mahalia-style.

If you want to hear Williams live, Nations recommends visiting Chicago, where the Big DooWopper – at least as late as 2002, when Feel the Spirit was recorded – busks for tips in the acoustically superb elevated line tunnel near the Loop’s bustling Washington and State Streets. Tell him TBGB sent you!

Two and a Half of Four Stars