Richard Smallwood: Setting God's Promises to Music

TBGB's Bob Marovich had an opportunity to talk with multi-award-winning gospel artist Richard Smallwood about his musical influences, inspiration for writing, and the new album, Promises.

TBGB: Talk about your recent hiatus from writing and recording.

RS: My mother passed in 2005. After that, my world just sort of stood still, just dealing with the loss and getting through the grieving period. I guess for about a year, I really didn't do much of anything in terms of music. By the end of 2006, I had begun to perform again and do ministry, but the writing part didn’t return. Even when I would try to write, nothing would come. After about four years, I thought I had probably written my last song and whatever part of the gift that was, was no longer there. I basically resigned to do the songs that I’d been doing for the many years that I’ve been doing this.

TBGB: What, then, inspired you to put together Promises?

RS: In 2009, I was watching CNN and was bombarded by all the negative news coming out of the TV: the economy and the recession, and people losing their homes and their jobs. God spoke to my heart. He said, “I’ve given you certain promises that are still Yea and Amen. You can bank on my word that I’m going to do it. I promised you that I would never leave you or forsake you. What I want you to do is write a work where all the songs deal with my promises, that you may be living in a difficult time but I still have your back and am still in charge.”

That’s where the whole concept of Promises comes from. We need to stop focusing on what the naysayers say and start focusing on what God says. When I got that word, the music just began to flow: through dreams, when I was awake, nonstop, sometimes two or three songs at a time.

TBGB: What was the first song that came out of this experience?

RS: The first song was “Praying for Peace.” I thought it was really appropriate because one of the things we need to remember is that if we seek God’s face, we will hear from Heaven and He will heal our land. That’s what kept going through my mind: a healing of the land, a bringing of peace, of love, of togetherness.

TBGB: What is your process for writing?

RS: It varies. I’m usually not even thinking about music and melodies just come. I have to stop everything to write them down when they are coming to me. This time, they came in all kinds of ways: in the car, at church, or I was sleeping and they came in a dream. I had a lot of dreams that music came out of. This didn’t happen a lot before, maybe once or twice in my life. Certainly not like this, and not in the amount that came out in the dreams.

Most musicians dream about music, but by the time you wake up, you either can’t remember the song or when you listen to it, it wasn’t as good as it sounded in the dream! But this time, I would wake up and the songs that I had been dreaming about were still in my head. I would run to my piano and put them down. I knew if I went back to sleep, I would forget them.

TBGB: “Trust Me” is the latest single and a song being learned and performed by choirs. What was the inspiration for this song?

RS: This was one of the songs that God gave me while I was just around the house. I heard the hook, “If you would only trust me, trust me.” I got that first, that little hook that keeps repeating, and I ran to the piano and played it, put the hook down on my tape recorder and wrote the song backwards from the hook.

It was another of the songs that talks about God’s promises. I will never leave you: a promise. I will fight your battles: another promise. The key thing we need to learn as God’s people is to solely and completely trust Him. Of course, it’s easy to say this to others when they are going through stuff, but it’s not easy when something is happening to us. But God is God and we need to trust Him and let Him do it.

TBGB: Did you always know that music is what you wanted to do?

RS: Oh, yes! I’ve never known anything else. Even before I can recall it myself! My mom used to tell the story of how when I was really young – I don’t think I had even started talking yet – she would hear me hum. And she listened closely and heard melodies I’d heard at church. That sort of freaked her out! “This baby is humming hymns and songs from church!” My parents got me a baby piano and I would bang out the rhythms, because I couldn’t pick out melodies yet, and I would hum! When I was old enough, about five, I would climb up on my stepfather’s real piano and pick out melodies and harmonies. By the time I was seven, I was playing for his church.

TBGB: Many artists cite you as an influence. Who are your influences?

RS: I have so many influences because I grew up listening to so many different genres of music. In gospel music, probably my biggest influences, especially during my teenage to young adult years, were Andrae Crouch, Edwin Hawkins and Walter Hawkins. Of course, when I was a child, there were artists like the Roberta Martin Singers and the Davis Sisters and Clara Ward, who my mother used to take me to see when I was living in Philly as a child. I grew up listening to them live. And classically, there’s Bach, who is my favorite composer in all of creation, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. And also Rogers and Hammerstein from the Broadway musical genre.

TBGB: I understand you experienced some pretty heady times at Howard University with people like Donny Hathaway.

RS: Donny Hathaway was a senior [at Howard] when I was a freshman, and for the little time he was there before he graduated and started to do what he did, he took me under his wing as a mentor. He taught me chords and musical ideas I had never heard of or thought of.

When I was in the eighth grade, my music teacher was Roberta Flack. So I always say God set me up because he put key people in my life to influence me in different ways. I have taken influences from all of them and put them into what I was to become musically.

TBGB: On my radio show, I have played a single from the Howard University Gospel Chorus where you are leading one of the songs.

RS: “I Found God!” Oh my God! Where did you get that? I must have been like nineteen or twenty, or something like that!

TBGB: You have probably heard the story about how Handel said of the “Hallelujah Chorus” that he felt as if God Himself wrote it. Have you ever felt that way about any of your songs?

RS: Oh yes. Certainly we are influenced by God and inspired by God, but there are certain works that I feel are already written on a spiritual level, and the songwriter is the conduit. We plug into the source where the music is, and God feeds us what already has been done. I believe that in my heart.

During the process of writing Promises, I had a vision that I was standing in front of this huge building. It looked like a church, but I never really looked up further than where my sightline was to see if there was a roof or windows. I just sat down on the steps of this big building and this music was coming out of it. The most incredible music I ever heard in my life.

My stepfather, who has been dead for years, was there. I turned to him and said, “Where are we?” He said, “I don’t know.” I said, “Is this a church?” He said, “I don’t know.” We started walking around, trying to find a sign or a billboard or something that said the name of the church or where we were. But this music just kept coming out. I sat there, almost in tears. When I came out of it, something spoke to my spirit. It said, “That’s where the music comes from.” It was the most real, authentic thing I ever experienced that wasn’t reality as we know it.

For more information about Richard Smallwood, go to http://www.richardsmallwood.com/.  Promises (Verity Records) is in stores now.

Medicine – Live at the Black Academy of Arts and Letters

Various Artists
Medicine – Live at the Black Academy of Arts and Letters
MCG Records (release date: August 16, 2011)
http://www.mcgrecords.com/

In October 2010, artists a-plenty participated in a concert to raise operating support for Dallas’s Black Academy of Arts and Letters, a nonprofit organization founded by Curtis King in 1977 that is now the largest multi-discipline black cultural institution in the United States.

In the process of delivering some much-needed financial medicine, the collection of singers, actors and musicians provided no small amount of spiritual medicine in the live program, captured for posterity on Medicine.

The CD’s finest moments are the first moments, when American Idol’s Ruben Studdard delivers an extraordinary performance of album producer Sam “Shake” Anderson’s inspirational “Medicine for Someone Else.” The song – about taking time to be a blessing to others – can stand on its own, but Studdard’s velvety tenor makes it top-grade.

Also taking it higher are the dynamic Yarbrough & Peoples. I wore out my copy of their The Two of Us LP in the early 1980s. Their “Jump Til’ You Feel Something” on Medicine evokes some of the hypnotic funkiness of “Don’t Stop the Music” while pulling on the secular sanctification of Sly Stone and House of Pain’s party-starting “Jump.” This selection could make the R&B charts and also find its way onto roots radio show playlists.

Other high points are when Ann Nesby of Sounds of Blackness sings from the loneliness of the prayer closet on the haunting “What Would You Have Me Do?” The neo-traditional rafter raising “Won’t Have to Worry” is led by the effervescent shouter Tommye Young-West and supported by the Academy Choir, which sings with polish and pizzazz throughout the CD.

All of the songs on the album were written or co-written by Anderson, and represent a impressive body of inspirational work.

Medicine concludes with a poignant and thought-provoking poem called “My Language.” Curtis King wrote this ode to the enduring spirit of African Americans as expressed through the fine arts for the Academy’s 30th anniversary season in 2007. Actress Jasmine Guy (A Different World) recites the poem with appropriate emotional power over an ever-shifting jazz soundtrack. When she recites a litany of significant writers, actors, artists and musicians, it is a confirmation, if one is needed, of the enormously rich and immeasurable contributions African Americans have made to the world’s cultural treasure chest.

Gospel fans in particular will enjoy Medicine for its soul-stirring performances and messages, but enthusiasts of any kind of music will find the collection appealing. It's worth it just to hear Studdard sing sacred music, which this collection suggests he ought to do more often.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “Medicine for Someone Else,” “Won’t Have to Worry.”

"Jesus, My Everything" - The Pat Jones Project

“Jesus, My Everything”
The Pat Jones Project
From The Pat Jones Project With Family and Friends (2008)
www.cdbaby.com/cd/PatJones

Hailing from Randallstown, Maryland, Pat Jones and her ensemble sing the stems off the notes on this lovely, flowing traditional-style worshipper with Richard Smallwood-esque majestic flourishes at the conclusion.

Jones is a singer, songwriter, choir director, playwright and actress. Her dramatic skills are put to excellent use on “Jesus, My Everything,” because just when you think she can go no further, she digs deep and pushes vocally outward to the finish.

Pat Jones is a member of the Church of God in Christ and has served the denomination in several capacities, including Jurisdictional Coordinator for the International Auxiliaries in Ministries Conference and the Music Department Ministry for the Bishops Conference in 2009.

Donald Lawrence & Co. - YRM (Your Righteous Mind)

Donald Lawrence & Co.
YRM (Your Righteous Mind)
Quietwater/Verity
(release date: August 9, 2011)
http://www.verityrecords.com/

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

Those enchanted by the GRAMMY- and Stellar Award-winning Donald Lawrence’s previous work will appreciate that YRM (Your Righteous Mind) follows artistically in the footsteps of his most immediate predecessors, The Law of Confession Part 1 and I Speak Life.

On this, his third solo CD, Lawrence uses his authoritative voice to teach lessons, declare simple truths, send audibles to the choir, and explain the stories behind some of the songs, which are often inspired by teachings of favorite pastors (one appears here: Bishop Tudor Bismark of South Africa).  Though its messages are diverse, a unifying element of YRM is the belief that you are what you, in your mind, declare yourself to be. When you affirm your personal "I Am," God will move in your life accordingly.

Time and again, the ensemble plucks similarly fundamental, and sometimes complex, themes from the Bible and distills them into simple, operational truths, such as on “Second Wind,” based on the story of Caleb. “Spiritual,” one of the album’s already-released singles, proclaims we are all “spiritual beings having a natural experience.” The song’s sophisticated strut evokes Lawrence’s 2008 hit, “Back II Eden.”

There are many fine performances throughout the CD, but the ballad “II Chronicles” stands out in particular for its soaring majesty. And on “Through the Fire,” the group doesn’t gospelize Chaka Khan’s 1985 hit but instead renders it nearly note-for-note. They just simply redirect the song’s object of affection.

A number of A-team gospel artists join Lawrence & Co. on YRM, among them Dorinda Clark Cole on the hit title track, Israel Houghton on the poignant “We Agree,” and fellow Chicagoan Kim McFarland on Walter Hawkins’ classic “When the Battle is Over.“

Besides the slate of fine soloists, much needs to be said about “& Co.” It is a group of exceptional singers with perfect diction who deliver lyrics with precision and power. In a time when music can overtake the message, with Donald Lawrence & Co., you not only hear each word, but you also feel each word.

YRM has all the ingredients of a flawless gospel album: great songs, talented singers and musicians, a team of guest artists, superb production and well-articulated messages. Thus, when by the conclusion – and it feels like a conclusion – the ensemble sings “Anything can happen/If we agree,” you know it will.

Five of Five Stars

Picks: “Spiritual,” "We Agree," “II Chronicles.”

Cynthia Jones - Journey of Soul

Cynthia Jones

Journey of Soul

Kingdom Records (release date: August 23, 2011)

http://www.cynthiajones.com/

“Are you ready for Miss Cynthia Jones?”

So asks GRAMMY- and Stellar Award-nominated neo-soul gospel singer Cynthia Jones on the introductory track of her new project, Journey of Soul. Spelling her name rhythmically in Fergie style, Jones sets the chill-or-dance mood “on the journey of soul” in the album’s opening moments.

Journey of Soul maintains the smooth jazz vibe that Jones established on her 2008 Kingdom Records CD, Gotta Soul. The North Carolina-based singer sounds like she was raised in New York or L.A., her music nurtured by smart vocalists such as Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Lisa McClendon and Lauryn Hill. Jones’ snappy repartee on “Unconditional” suggests she even picked up a couple of vocal tips along the way from the late Michael Jackson.

The album lyrics are part praise, part honest conversations with God, and part life lessons imparted with an intimacy, as if it’s just you and Miss Jones, hanging out on a shaggy-carpeted living room.

But Jones wants listeners to do more than just sit and listen. She offers plenty of opportunities for partaking in praise dancing, including the finger-popping “Child of the King;” the Christian club-ready “Universal Praise,” where Jones asks for the “universal praise word” (it’s “Hallelujah”); and the aptly titled “Judah Jam,” where Jones sings, “I want to dance like David danced. I’m gonna cut a step tonight.” Even the apocryphal “Midnight” encourages listeners to heed the End of Days, but not without a little shape cutting.

“Revival” injects some straight-up gospel atop purringly hypnotic background harmonies. Speaking of straight-up gospel, Jones playfully places snippets of familiar gospel hymns (and at least one recent popular R&B song) into several of her selections. I leave it to the listener to locate them.

Journey of Soul is the aural equivalent of wearing a comfortable and stylish pair of jeans. It’s Kingdom Records’ shimmering Seventies side.

If you are in the Raleigh, NC area, do a little praise stepping of your own at Cynthia Jones' CD release party. See her website (http://www.cynthiajones.com/) for more details.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “Unconditional,” “Universal Praise,” “Revival.”

F1 Diamond: “Music is Only the PR Campaign for the Mission”

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

When one thinks of mean streets, places like New York, LA - Watts, Detroit and Chicago come to mind.

Not Milwaukee.

But make no mistake: Milwaukee has its share of mean streets.

Ask F1 Diamond. The Christian hip hop artist hung out at 45th and Lloyd in Milwaukee and used the lessons he learned there to change himself and inspire others.

Born Radontae Ashford, F1 Diamond grew up in Milwaukee to a mother who took her small child into the taverns. “I was not from the church,” F1 Diamond told TBGB during a visit to Chicago last week.

But F1 Diamond’s grandmother was from the church: she was an usher at Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church. For a short time, F1 Diamond, his mother and siblings attended Greater Galilee Baptist Church. He was in Boy Scouts and attended camp, but by the age of eight, “we never went back to church.” Thereafter, the young man developed a passion for street life, joining a gang at age eleven. “The people on the corner became my life,” F1 Diamond said.

While in middle school, he began honing his gift for rapping. Music became his escape route. Reflecting back, he believes that “God was using the gift of music to keep me from going too far in the streets.”

F1 Diamond and TBGB's Bob Marovich

F1 Diamond dropped out of high school in the eleventh grade, and by his twenties had started Infinite Recordings, a record label that helped kickstart Milwaukee’s hip hop scene. The label’s breakout hit was “My Projects” by Coo Coo Cal (Calvin Bellamy). The single went to number one on Billboard’s Top Rap Singles chart in 2001 and stayed there for four weeks.

Success brought F1 Diamond a life surrounded by women, drugs and more street life. The downside of success, however, was all too sobering. Two of his friends went to prison for life and another, an eighteen year old, was killed. All this sent him spinning out of control, “like I was going insane,” he said.

January 6, 2002 is a day F1 Diamond will never forget. At four o’clock in the morning, he called his mother. By then, she had relocated to Memphis, where her father lived.  She got saved and became involved in the church. F1 Diamond told his mother he wanted to join her in Memphis. She immediately got in the car, “and by eleven p.m. that evening,” he said, “she had driven from Memphis to Milwaukee to get me.”

On the way to Memphis, everything he owned – including his clothes and the record company – left behind in Milwaukee, F1 Diamond sat in the car and listened to the gospel music his mother was playing. He specifically remembers how Donnie McClurkin’s “Just For Me” struck the right chord inside him.

“For the first time in my life, I felt bad about what I did,” F1 Diamond explained. He asked his mother to pull over to the side of the expressway. There, near Cairo, Illinois, he gave his life to Christ.

In Memphis, F1 Diamond went back to school, got his GED and attended Crichton College where he majored in Biblical Studies and Psychology. He started a Bible study for youth at Greater Imani Church, where his pastor is Dr. Bill Adkins. In April 2002 he accepted his calling to the ministry and since 2003 has been a full-time youth pastor for S.C.R.E.A.M (Shout Christ, Renounce Evil And Magnify the Lord), which has 400 members. One of the young persons in his group called the Milwaukee transplant a pastor of the "traphouse,” street slang for a crack house. Pastor of the Traphouse.  The name stuck.

F1 Diamond began creating hip hop songs as a way to reach the youth in his group, but he never intended the material to get radio airplay or to launch a new music career. “The kids just started playing the songs at school for their friends.  A local radio announcer, DJ R.J. Groove at 95.7 FM, he began playing them on his show, ‘The Kingdom Party.’”

Around the same time, an innocent phone call changed F1 Diamond’s life. Calling Cloud Ten Pictures to get permission to show the film, Saving God, for his youth group, F1 Diamond found himself talking with the company’s owner. One thing led to another, F1 Diamond sent the company a copy of his “Pastor of the Traphouse” CD, and he was subsequently offered a distribution deal.

Today, F1 Diamond is garnering responses worldwide for his Christian hip hop music. But he remains grounded. “I’m not career building with my music. We’re here to save souls.”

How did he decide on the name F1 Diamond? “An F1 diamond is an almost flawless diamond, created from coal under the most heat and tremendous pressure,” the artist explained. “I feel that I grew up under tremendous heat and pressure, selling crack at eleven years old and living on welfare. But at the same time, an F1 diamond is used to cut and shape other diamonds, and I want God to use me to shape others. Anybody who shapes you for the better is an F1 diamond.”

F1 Diamond said he doesn’t consider himself a “studio junkie.”

“I don’t write to music, I write to inspiration. I only record when I’m completely inspired. I’m not rapping. These are sermons, and I approach recording the way I approach a sermon. It starts by communicating with God and letting God inspire you.”

He added, “Raps are more about the message than the beats or the sound. For me, music is only the PR campaign for the mission. The point is not to make a song or a dance, but to have a conversation with people.”

For more information, go to http://www.f1diamond.com/.

"Holy One" - The Rance Allen Group

“Holy One”
The Rance Allen Group
From the Tyscot Records CD The Live Experience II
http://www.tyscot.com/

Rance Allen and his brothers put their distinctive grit-and-soul spin on the praise and worship song, “Holy One,” the latest single released from The Live Experience II.

The rolling, hypnotic melody and chant-like lyrics are punctuated by blasts of evangelistic energy from Rance, who shouts praises like a drill sergeant in ecstasy. The ensemble raises and cools the mood intermittently, sending waves of passion shimmering through Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple where this track was recorded before a live congregation last July.

"Jesus" - Le'Andria Johnson

“Jesus”
Le’Andria Johnson
http://www.musicworldgospel.com/

2010 Sunday Best Winner Le’Andria Johnson has just released her first single, “Jesus,” a slow and deliberate bluesy shouter about calling on Jesus when you need him.

A pleading soul at the end of her line, singing like she has nothing to lose, Johnson pours every last ounce of her insides into the song. She confides how she goes into her praying closet, “time after time, praying Jesus, singing Jesus, crying Jesus.” Produced by GRAMMY Award winner Chuck Harmony, the song is as haunting as it is hopeful.

Singer-songwriter-producer Le’Andria Johnson currently serves as praise and worship leader at her hometown church, HQ Ministries in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Word has it that her debut CD, The Awakening of Le’Andria Johnson, will be released September 6, 2011.

Listen below:

Le'Andria Johnson - Jesus by Stratus Digital Marketing

TBGB Pick of the Week: July 25, 2011

“Dream”
Shirley Murdock
Tyscot Records 2011
http://www.tyscot.com/

After an ethereal intro, gospel singer Shirley Murdock wraps her evangelist’s vocal prowess around this inspirational song about the power of the dream that God puts in your life, the one “that would not die.” She bolsters her argument with the Biblical example of Joseph and his prophetic dreams.

In your mind’s eye, you can see Murdock walking the altar, arms waving in assent to the encouraging lyrics as she and her background vocalists urge listeners to hang on to those dreams. After all, sometimes a dream is all we have.

Shirley Murdock's first-ever live CD and DVD, The Journey, was recorded earlier this year and will be released by Tyscot Music & Entertainment on October 18, 2011.

Pekints - My Best Friend

Pekints

My Best Friend

PM&M 2011
http://www.pekints.com/

Peter Kintum, aka Pekints, is an earnest, youthful-sounding Christian hip hop artist from Washington, DC. My Best Friend is his second and most recent CD.

Pekints’ work is best described as praise rap. The title track, for example, is an gushing ode to the Most High as the artist's best friend. “You’re My Love” and “We Lift You High” are straightforward exclamations of praise and worship, but with a hip hop beat. On “God’s VIP,” Pekints considers himself (and every believer) a true VIP, a “child of the King.” “Ultimate High” declares the power of being in God’s unchanging hands to be greater than any drug or other artificial stimulant.

The album’s high point is “A Better Me,” a solemn promise of life improvement to his family: “no more messing around – no more hanging around.” Likening his behavior to that of the Prodigal Son, Pekints (or the character he portrays in "A Better Me") even says he'll go to rehab. Another strong track on the CD is “Move Your Body.”  It puts praise on the proverbial dance floor, during which Pekints directs listeners to move their bodies “for the Lord.”

At some points during My Best Friend, the blasts of beats threaten to overpower the rhymes, and Pekints’ rapping is superior to his singing ability. What one cannot dispute is Pekints’ sincerity, which is evident throughout the project.

Two of Five Stars

Pick: “A Better Me.”

Standing on the Rock - LoveTones

LoveTones

Standing on the Rock

LoveTones (2011)

TBGB met Walter Cooper and the LoveTones in October 2010 when it reviewed the New England-based vocal group’s album, Jubilee.

Standing on the Rock, the LoveTones' latest full-length CD, continues the ensemble’s commitment to seasoning traditional gospels and spirituals with rich vocal harmonies. To this end, the LoveTones sound somewhere in between a quartet and a male chorus.

Standing on the Rock demonstrates dramatically improved production and vocal arrangements, and stronger harmonies, than Jubilee. An acappella introduction to the opening selection, “Joy Everlasting,” captures the listener’s attention from the outset, and the closer, “We’ve Come This Far By Faith,” comes as close as any track on the CD in evoking the muscular might of Atlanta’s Majestic Male Chorus.

The album’s nine tracks are a step back in time. “Old Ship of Zion” opens with a strong harmonic arrangement and continues with bluesy flourishes, while “Born Again” taps into the group’s quartet side with a driving verve appropriate to the subject matter.

The musicians, anchored by engineer/mixer and guitarist Joe Laquidara, provide solid support to the LoveTones, though the vocal ensemble could just as easily have sung everything acappella.

Standing on the Rock is a much finer example of the LoveTones musical “lay ministry of hope and comfort” than their previous recorded examples. One can only hope the ensemble continues to hone its craft because traditional gospel classics and vocal group harmony are worth preserving.

Three of Five Stars

Picks: “We’ve Come This Far by Faith.”

Tre' Thomas - A Natural Contrast

Tre’ Thomas

A Natural Contrast

http://www.trethomas.com/

Born in New Orleans and a former member of the Howard University Gospel Choir, Tre’ Thomas grew up in church but prefers laid-back R&B to express his religious conviction. The ten tracks on Thomas’ debut album, A Natural Contrast, find him immersed in the quiet storm groove as he lays bare his soul to the listener.

Thomas’ cool, elastic and expressive R&B-infused voice is a blend of his musical influences, including Richard Smallwood, Eric Benet, and Luther Vandross. Naturally, then, he is at its best on the album’s worship ballads – love songs to the Most High – especially “My First Love” and the praise and worship “More than Anything.” “My First Love” finds Tre’ drifting well above the stave in wordless lines of improvisation that express his adoration for God, an adoration for which he can find no adequate words.

In keeping with the album title, Thomas turns the temperature up on the rock guitar-driven “All Things,” a song about keeping the faith and trusting in God. At one point in the selection, his voice sounds like an Indian pungi (snake charmer instrument) as he improvises in auto-tune. “Imagine” continues down the same lyrical line of reasoning by declaring that if one lives right, God will take care of the rest.

Thomas, who has sung background for Tye Tribbett, Ted &Sheri, DeWayne Woods and Maurette Brown-Clark, seeks to break down barriers between gospel and secular sounds. “It doesn't matter what you do, just do whatever comes from your heart,” Thomas said. “But it is important to remember that we are all here for something other than ourselves.”

You can hear Thomas every Monday at 9:00 p.m. ET on his online radio show, LoveLudes, broadcast on the award-winning Bonnerfide Radio.

A Natural Contrast is a modern soundtrack to modern challenges with solutions that are time-tested.

Three of Five Stars

Picks: “All Things,” “More Than Anything.”

Various Artists - Most Powerful Voices Vol. 1

Various Artists
Most Powerful Voices Vol. 1
Music World Gospel 2011
http://www.musicworldgospel.com/

In the mid-1930s, Professor Thomas A. Dorsey referred to his newly-minted gospel songs as “heart songs.”

So what better way to promote a healthy heart than singing heart songs?

To educate people about stroke, the American Heart Association, in collaboration with Music World Gospel and GMC (Gospel Music Channel), did just that. They organized “The Most Powerful Voices Gospel Music Competition” in 2010. The winners from a group of 20 finalists selected by a panel of judges were chosen by the public on Valentines Day, 2011.

The two winning groups were Daniel Mitchell and Hillel (Gainesville, FL), and Brandon Camphor & One Way (Upper Marlboro, MD). Among a treasure trove of prizes, both ensembles received professional vocal coaching from gospel artist Brian Courtney Wilson and inclusion on the Most Powerful Voices Vol. 1 various artists compilation CD, released May 17, 2011.

Naturally, the winners put heart (and soul) into their respective tracks. Daniel Mitchell and Hillel are energetic and vocally acrobatic on “Great Things,” while Brandon Camphor and One Way are hard charging on their ode to the power of believing, “It’s Possible (Gotta Have Faith).”

The compilation also features previously released hits by gospel artists who supported the project, many from the Music World Gospel roster. Previously released recordings include Myron Butler & Levi’s polyrhythmic “Set Me Free;” Trin-i-tee 5:7’s nod to traditional, “I’m Still Holdin’ On;” Brian Courtney Wilson’s marvelous monster hit, “All I Need;” and Pentecostal-style shouting courtesy of Vanessa Bell Armstrong on “It’s Over Now.”

Juanita Bynum concludes the project with the recitation of her “Soul Cry,” though I would have preferred hearing her more affecting musical version. Nevertheless, Most Powerful Voices Vol. 1 is an enjoyable retrospective of gospel’s more recent hits and an introduction to two fine, fresh-faced ensembles.

Take this to heart: a portion of the proceeds of the CD benefits the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s “Power to End Stroke” campaign.

Four of Five Stars

Richard Smallwood with Vision - Promises

Richard Smallwood with Vision
Promises
Verity Gospel Music Group 2011
http://www.verityrecords.com/

It’s been six years since Richard Smallwood released a new full-length album. After his mother died in 2005, the singer-songwriter thought that his gift “had dried up. I tried to write and nothing would come.”

That gift, as everyone knows, is the creation and dissemination of classical-influenced gospel hymnody that can be heard in churches around the world. Majestic, bold, anthemic, contemplative and Bible-based are adjectives used to describe Richard Smallwood’s music. They are also more than adequate descriptors of his new album, Promises, released in stores today.

Many of the songs on Promises, which continues the artist's penchant for one-word album titles, seem ready-made for worship teams and choirs, most especially the current single, “Trust Me.” Its whisper-to-a-shout pulse is like a prayer raised at midnight.

I saw the impression "Trust Me" can make on a congregation when I heard Senior Pastor DeAndre Patterson’s Destiny Worship Center Choir on Chicago’s west side sing it a couple of months ago. It sent congregants to tears, standing, lifting arms, wholly entranced. Unlike Smallwood’s magnum opus, “Total Praise,” which seizes the soul in a final crashing crescendo of emotion, “Trust Me” gently and silently enters the bloodstream, warming the heart from the first few notes.

In addition to “Trust Me,” other songs on the album that contain the quintessential Smallwood graceful touch with a gospel ballad include the hymnic “God of Promise,” “Sow in Tears” and “Is There Any Way,” the latter from Bishop Walter Hawkins’ Love Alive series. “Be Faithful” features lovely ensemble work from Vision, Smallwood’s longtime vocal group.

Excellent soloists can be heard throughout Promise, among them Lalah Hathaway, daughter of the late Donnie Hathaway, who contributes lovingly to Smallwood’s reflection on today’s troubles, “Praying for Peace.” Smallwood said this song was inspired in part by the fact that “racism has reared its ugly head in a way that I haven’t seen since I was a little boy. I wanted to write something that everyone could identify with globally, which is that we need peace.”

Steven Ford produces the album masterfully. Promises finds Richard Smallwood with Vision pulling out all the stops and demonstrating that not only is the composer’s gift intact, but it may be stronger than ever.

Five of Five Stars

Picks: “Trust Me,” “Is There Any Way?”

TBGB Pick of the Week: July 18, 2011

“One Voice”
Micah Stampley
From the forthcoming CD One Voice (in stores August 23, 2011)
http://www.musicworldgospel.com/

Gospel crooner and worship leader Micah Stampley hits it again, this time on “One Voice,” a pop-infused ode to togetherness in worship, regardless of race, creed or color.

Invoking the key message of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the feel-good and inspirational song emphasizes what ought to be the core tenet of all humanity: in a world of “different colors, many expressions…we are one people, one voice. Make us one.” Amen.

“One Voice” is a collaborative between Stampley and his wife, Heidi, who wrote the lyrics. It will be the title track of Stampley’s fifth CD, forthcoming later next month from Music World Gospel/Interface Entertainment.

Micah Stampley - One Voice by Stratus Digital Marketing

Shonlock - Neveroddoreven

Shonlock
Neveroddoreven
Arrow Records 2011
http://www.arrow-records.com/

Shonlock may well be the breakout Christian artist of the year.

Not that the Chicago native now living in Atlanta is a newcomer to the industry. Neveroddoreven, in fact, is Deshon "Shonlock" Bullock's third CD. His first recording was a self-produced, self-marketed disc that sold more than 15,000 units. Last year, a partnership with Arrow Records/Universal Christian Marketing Group resulted in an EP titled Where Never Begins.

But Neveroddoreven (a phrase spelled the same way backwards and forwards) contains the brilliant, effortless mash-up of music genres that spirited Israel and Trip Lee to prominence, though in different ways. Where Israel produced worship team-ready songs and Lee hip hop magic, Shonlock blends pop, hip hop and rock in ways that will draw inevitable comparisons to Canton Jones, Aaron Sledge, J Moss and TobyMac, the latter a significant influence on the artist.

The opening track and current single, “Something in Your Eyes,” is as good an example of Shonlock’s electric style as any. The hook-laden pop melody and insistent beats support the singer’s bright, expressive voice, while the lyrics express a simple but pleasurable truth: that with God, one is never alone, in good times and bad.

“Could U Be” and “Hello” are two additional brisk and punchy selections, while “Cheers” and “Scarred” are honest glances back at a darker time in Shonlock’s life. “Monsta” (also the name of Shonlock’s mighty band) is a call for worship warriors to confront the evil in the world.

About “Neveroddoreven,” the title track and rock anthem, Shonlock said, “I never find it odd when amazing things happen. But on the flipside, with the ultimate sacrifice of His son, I could never get even, which makes me forever indebted to Him.”

Neveroddoreven is a project that cries out to be enjoyed at maximum volume. “My goal is to be a blend for the pop, hip-hop and rock-loving crowd without ever wanting to get boxed into a certain category,” Shonlock added. “If there’s a good message and quality music, gifts and talents will rise to the top.” Indeed, the album brims with good messages and quality music.

Five of Five Stars

Picks: “Something in Your Eyes,” “Could U Be,” “Hello.”

"To Whom Shall We Liken Unto Our God" - Pastor James R. Adams & the Abounding Life COGIC Mass Choir & Musicians

“To Whom Shall We Liken Unto Our God”
Pastor James R. Adams & the Abounding Life COGIC Mass Choir & Musicians
http://www.aboundinglifecogic.org/

To a strutting traditional tempo with bluesy touches in the music and singing, Pastor James R. Adams and the Abounding Life COGIC Mass Choir and Musicians ask the rhetorical question spelled out in the title. The answer is a litany of adjectives about God, who “can do anything.”

With a populist touch, the song’s call-response is reversed: the choir asks and the pastor responds.

Founded by Pastor Adams, the 2,100 seat Abounding Life COGIC is located in Posen, Illinois, a suburb approximately 20 minutes south of Chicago. And if you are from Chicago, you know we measure distances in minutes, not miles!

Spirit 2 Spirit - You Better Get Ready

Spirit 2 Spirit
You Better Get Ready
Tate Music Group 2011
http://www.spirit2spiritmessagemusic.com/

Dubbed the “Earth, Wind and Fire of Gospel,” Spirit 2 Spirit is led by brothers Michael and Denny Jenkins. Together with a crew of singers and musicians that provide playful and funky arrangements, the DC ensemble certainly lives up to its billing.

The group’s provenance goes back further than EWF. Michael and Denny’s father, the late Thomas Jenkins, organized, managed and sang with the Mighty Southern Echoes of Washington, DC. The brothers even had a chance to play for the quartet before it retired in 1999, after nearly a half century on the gospel highway. The brothers decided to maintain the group's spiritual legacy by forming Spirit 2 Spirit.

The front cover of the group’s new album, You Better Get Ready, is a depiction of the Rapture: people being lifted skyward from a steel and metal city that looks a little like downtown Detroit. The End of Days hangs like the Sword of Damocles over the album’s lyric theme, a theme expressed directly on tracks such as “Never Give Up,” “Friend,” “Right Road,” and explicitly on the title track. On “Never Give Up,” Spirit 2 Spirit launches into the high, tight 70s soul harmonies of the Violinaires and Esquires as they declare “change is coming…get right and see what faith brings.”

In addition to EWF, the Spirit 2 Spirit band interjects techniques seemingly ripped from the songbooks of Issac Hayes, Stevie Wonder and Parliament on songs about thanksgiving, redemption, love and encouragement. The keyboard programming of the Jenkins brothers as well as Curtis Day is largely responsible for the old-school 70s soul sound, serving as a synthesized brass and string section. An extended version of “Let’s Pray” features Michael’s thumping bass. Check out “Robe,” a funky adaptation of “All God’s Children Got Shoes.”

Spirit 2 Spirit is a group that enjoys what it is doing, delights in challenging the gospel norm musically, and I’ll bet they are fun to watch live.

Three of Five Stars

Picks: “Never Give Up,” “Robe.”

Trin-i-tee 5:7 - An Amazon Daily Deal

TBGB has learned that Trin-i-tee 5:7's latest CD, Angel and Chanelle, will be featured in Amazon's Daily Deal on July 17, 2011. 

That means the album will be available for $3.99 for one day only.

TBGB Editor Interviewed on "A Life's Work" Blog

TBGB Founder and Editor Bob Marovich (photo, left) was honored to be interviewed by writer, director and filmmaker David Licata for his fascinating A Life's Work blog. 

A Life's Work introduces the public to people whose projects and activities are on such a massive scale, they may not be completed in their lifetimes.

Read the interview here:
Discovering Your Passion - Bob Marovich

Photo Credit: Laurel Delaney (http://www.laureldelaney.com/)

TBGB Pick of the Week: July 11, 2011

“Choices”
Gisele Anthony
www.reverbnation.com/gisele

A native New Yorker now living in South Carolina, Gisele Anthony lathers a neo-soul groove over “Choices.” It's a smooth, hypnotic song with a pop-like hook and Middle Eastern influences that echo during the mysterious intro.

“Choices” is a lesson on taking the time to make the right choices in life lest you have regrets later.

Gisele Anthony is a singer-songwriter who has spent time in musical theater and also has skills in vocal arranging. Her eclectic taste in music is evident in her work, recommended if you like gospel neo-soul stylists such as Cynthia Jones, Lisa McClendon, and Angelia Robinson.

Bishop F.C. Barnes ("Rough Side of the Mountain") Dies

Libra Boyd of Gospel Music Fever informed TBGB that Bishop F.C. Barnes passed away this morning.

The patriarch of the Barnes Family, which includes quartet songster Luther Barnes, Bishop F.C. is perhaps best known for "Rough Side of the Mountain" but had remained very active in the gospel music community.  His work with Darrell Luster on the single, "God Is God (He Don't Change)," was a radio favorite last year.

TBGB sends condolences to the immediate and extended Barnes Family on its loss.

Read more at Gospel Music Fever.

NOTE: Homegoing Services for Bishop Barnes can be found on Gospel Music Fever: Click HERE.

The Gospel Hummingbirds - Life Songs

The Gospel Hummingbirds
Life Songs
Gospel Hummingbird Records (2006)
www.thegospelhummingbirds.com

The Grammy-nominated Gospel Hummingbirds have been making music since the early 1960s, when the likes of Roy Tyler and others were in the Bay Area quartet. Along the way, they put out some very fine records, such as “A Better Home” (Bar-Tone) and “Trouble Don’t Last” (Strickland & Son). Even then, their sound had one foot in traditional and the other in the groove of the day.

On Life Songs, the quartet’s most recent release, their sound evokes the sweet, complex harmonies of the Spinners, Whispers, Manhattans, Chi-Lites and the ‘70s Temptations. Nowhere are the harmonies sweeter on Life Songs than on “Heaven,” although the a cappella salute to national resilience, “America,” is quite fetching.

Lyrically, the album makes several references to the end of life, whether it be personal (“See You,” “Heaven”), or world-wide (“Rapture”). Other songs contain the uncomplicated lessons that have come to define quartet lyrics. On “God Said No,” for example, the group warns about yielding to temptation when you think you are with the “right one,” but they do it in such a smooth manner the medicine goes down easily.

“Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego,” reviewed earlier on TBGB, is a cover of the Golden Gate Quartet classic, but with more bass and modern rhythmic drive. The quartet even adds some humor to the album with “County Fair,” a blues about the fright of going on bone-rattling rides at the fair.

Special kudos to producer and group member Morris LeGrande, who provides compelling lead guitar work on “Prayer Changes Things” and “Shadrack.”

Three of Five Stars

Picks: “Heaven,” “Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego.”

"In the Fire" - Linda

“In the Fire”
Linda
NWJ Productions (2011)
http://www.lindaagostoonline.com/

Latino singers and musicians have long embraced African American gospel song – from Gene Viale of the Cleveland Singers to current stars Joann Rosario and Puchi Colon.

Count Linda Agosto among them.

The New York native’s 2004 self-titled debut CD featured songs in English and Spanish, including some infused with a sassy salsa beat she calls “Salsa Gospel." Now living in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, the gospel singer with Puerto Rican roots continues her bi-cultural music ministry with a new single, “In the Fire”

From a forthcoming CD, “In the Fire” is a testimony about how one's faith and strength are forged in the fire of life’s trials. Linda wraps it in her no-nonsense staccato delivery. The R&B version captures the song’s deep convictions more convincingly than the salsa version, where the celebratory sound that works so well on “Perdoname,” from her debut album, is incongruous with the single’s internal drama.

Linda Agosto writes that she composed “In the Fire” during a particularly difficult period in her life, but the song also “signifies the triumph over slavery and colonialism steeped deeply in Caribbean history.”

"Running" - Johnny Gatlin

“Running”

Johnny Gatlin

From the Byrd Records CD

The Sanctified Review Project: Volume 1 (2010)

johnnygatlin@yahoo.com

Singer-songwriter Roy Tyler introduced TBGB to Johnny Gatlin recently. Gatlin is a Bay Area gospel singer who mixes new material with traditional classics on The Sanctified Review Project: Volume 1.

“Running” is one of the traditional selections: a smoky, guitar-led gospel blues version of “Ninety-Nine and a Half Won’t Do.” Gatlin channels John Lee Hooker’s understated but searing vocals and lessens the pressure with occasional micro bursts of emotion. On the single, Gatlin not only runs to make a hundred, he tells you how.

Lonnie Hunter feat. Structure - I'm Back

Lonnie Hunter feat. Structure

I’m Back

Blacksmoke Music Worldwide (2011)

http://www.thelonniehuntershow.com/

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

From business owner to Stellar-nominated gospel artist to Chicago morning drive-time gospel announcer to the host of one of the country’s most popular syndicated radio programs, Lonnie Hunter is a walking, talking success story. He was named Stellar Award Announcer of the Year in 2010 and continues to make music while manning the radio mic.

While Hunter now lives in New Jersey, he pays ample tribute to his Chicago roots on his new Blacksmoke Music Worldwide CD, I’m Back. Supported by Structure, a strong-voiced and well-rehearsed choir, Hunter and a bench of fine lead singers render contemporary gospel songs and vintage classics. In many respects, this CD belongs as much to Structure and the various leads as to Hunter himself.

The title track and current single is a pounding mid-tempo declaration that the God-fearing can be down but are never out. From there, the ensemble delivers a dramatic, anthemic and semi-classical version of Kurt Carr’s arrangement of the hymn, “Holy Holy Holy.” As a child growing up Catholic, I hated this song because we sang it so often and with no verve. It would have been different had we learned this version.

Old-schoolers will appreciate the pewburners “The Holy Ghost is Moving” and “No Matter What Happens,” the latter a Malcolm Williams-penned Chicago-style rouser reaffirming that even if you are lied on or backbitten, keep the praise aloft. Slowing the tempo, Lonnie Hunter and Structure do Roberta Martin Singer Eugene Smith’s quintessential gospel blues, “The Lord Will Make a Way,” cleverly interpolating “Hush! Somebody’s Calling My Name” to craft a medley. Hunter clearly inherited his late mother's singing sense.

I’m Back concludes with a funky version of “Wade in the Water,” aided by Daniel Weatherspoon’s smart and multi-textured music direction. Lonnie Hunter continues to demonstrate his artistic versatility on this new project, recorded in Philadelphia but infused with Chi-town swagger.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “No Matter What Happens,” “Church in the Studio.”

TBGB Pick of the Week: July 4, 2011

“Pray About It”
Donnie & Shirley
From the EP Never Too Late (2011)
www.cdbaby.com/cd/donnieshirley

Shirley Morgan sounds like she took voice lessons from Mavis Staples and Tina Turner.

Her deep, throaty alto and soulful shouting, coupled with Donnie Morgan’s deep southern guitar licks, could give one the mistaken impression that “Pray About It” is an unissued track from the vaults of the Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. No, it’s as current as 2011 and recorded in Plano, Texas.

The husband-wife duo formed in 1991 and calls Bishop Jakes’ The Potter’s House in Dallas their church home. On “Pray About It,” they don’t just suggest praying through troubles, they command it.

LaShun Pace - Reborn

LaShun Pace

Reborn

Shanachie Entertainment Corp. (released June 28, 2011)

http://www.shanachie.com/

On a salute to Tarrian LaShun Pace that opens Reborn, sister Lydia Pace comments that “there’s a price to pay to sing the songs of the Lord.”

LaShun has paid that price.

Her eleven year-old daughter, Xenia, died of heart trouble. Two marriages fell apart. Her father got sick.  LaShun's own illness impeded her ability to work, which caused serious financial trouble and her home went into foreclosure. At one point, LaShun asked God, "If you're not going to heal me, please take me home."  He healed, she's still here, and Reborn is the musical tribute.

Reborn is her fittingly-titled first solo project in four years and first with Shanachie Entertainment. Having first come to the fore as a member of the Anointed Pace Sisters, LaShun gives testimony to the price and the healing, and sings God's praises in her trademark traditional gospel style.

The current radio single, “Something 2 Live 4,” is an upbeat paean to the singer’s brighter future, but the album really shines when it finds its gospel blues center. “You’re So Good” showcases LaShun’s shouts, squalls, and eyebrow-lifting high notes. “God” is southern-fried gospel blues, allowing LaShun to improvise at will. “Keep Going On” has the feel of an extended quartet piece, as LaShun shares how her praying mother brought the strength she needed to overcome an illness that landed her in a Milwaukee hospital. 

Rudolph Stansfield produces and the ensemble David Walker & High Praise offers strong support to the singer, who lets her old-school roots show with a medley of classic gospels and hymns that “brought her through.” In addition, “Say So” is an up-tempo COGIC-style handclapper that morphs into a rock instrumental bolstered by Eric Brice’s steaming electric guitar. “It’s Me Oh Lord” is an antiphonal piece with a thumping backbeat that conjures images of congregational singing in the little wooden church on the hill.

On Reborn, LaShun Pace shouts her troubles over with the verve that anchored gospel's first generation of vocalists.  Fans of traditional gospel in particular will appreciate this musical demonstration of how the singer got over, one Zion song at a time.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “You’re So Good,” “It’s Me Oh Lord.”

"To Praise You" - Michael Nelson

“To Praise You”

Michael Nelson

From the VeeKay Music CD Nikao! (2011)

http://www.veekaymusic.com/

On “To Praise You,” God picked Michael Nelson up, dusted him off, and sent him on his way. In the process, He changed the singer’s life. Nelson and his strong band of vocalists give praise for such a blessing on this mid-tempo mover.

Nelson explains that the album title, Nikao!, is a Greek word meaning “to overcome, to prevail, to conquer.” Appropriate for an emerging gospel artist.