Smokie Norful Forever Yours Tre Myles Music / Motown Gospel (2014) www.motowngospel.com By Bob Marovich Grammy Award-winning vocalist Smokie Norful burst upon the national stage in 2002 with the breakout hit, “I Need You Now.” The song, featuring Norful’s trademark melismatic tenor, not only garnered significant gospel radio airplay, but also made the playlist of nighttime Quiet Storm programming. A licensed minister even before his solo career took flight, Norful founded Victory Cathedral Worship Center in suburban Chicago in 2005 and has released at least three recorded sermons. Forever Yours, the latest fruit of his labors, explores new musical territory ...

Eddie Reddic Above All Reddic Records (2014) Available at CD Universe By Bob Marovich Above All, the third album from Houston, Texas, native Eddie Reddic, ties traditional lyrics to contemporary sounds and resourceful arrangements. For example, Reddic gives the church classic “I’m a Soldier” a deep, funky treatment, while “Lead Me to the Rock” flows with a modern flair. Another congregational favorite, “What He’s Done For Me,” puts a heightened praise break-style tempo to a quartet sensibility. All eight of the songs on the album contain flavors of jazz, R&B, and contemporary gospel. What Eddie Reddic demonstrates above all on ...

“It’s Gonna Happen” Jekalyn Carr Lunjeal Music Group/Malaco Music Group (available on iTunes August 12) www.myjekalyncarr.net “It’s Gonna Happen” is the latest single from the seventeen-year-old from the Mid-South who brought you “Greater is Coming” and “They Said, But God Said.” In a chirpy vibrato that evokes the pre-teen Tanya Tucker, Jekalyn delivers a ballad of faith that good things will happen because God said they will. It’s the wisdom not of the aged but of youthful optimism and a steadfast belief in the substance of things not seen. Jekalyn first came to national attention when she sang “Amazing Grace” in the ...

DALLAS (August 5, 2014) – Grammy Award® Nominee Tamela Mann and Gospel Icon Kirk Franklin have a lot to celebrate. The “Take Me To The King” digital single, written and produced by Franklin and recorded and performed by Tamela, has been RIAA Certified Gold, having sold more than 500,000 digital copies. Tillymann Music Group label head and Tamela’s manager and husband, David Mann, presented Tamela with her RIAA Certified Gold plaque during their Comedy and Concert event on Friday, August 1 at the Victoria Fine Arts Center in Victoria, Texas. “What an amazing surprise to be presented with my first ...

Mark Yandris A Sound for God’s House Released June 16, 2014 Available at Amazon, iTunes, etc. By Bob Marovich Mark Yandris is a brother from another mother. Like me, he has Slavic roots and family ties to the Calumet Region south of Chicago. Whereas our family remained in Da Region, Yandris’s family moved to the Bay Area.  He grew up in the Gospel Music Workshop of America and his father’s First Apostolic United Pentecostal Church.  While other fifteen-year-olds and I were trying desperately to learn a few chords on the guitar, Yandris had already formed his first gospel choir. His ...

“I Gotta Do Better” Jon Plair www.jonplair.com With “I Gotta Do Better,” singer-songwriter, producer, musician, and COGIC PK Jonathan Plair admonishes those “slacking in their praise” to do better.  Do better, he exhorts, and you will change your life. The song is conventional in melody and arrangement, but Plair and his female background singers, who do most of the vocal heavy lifting, give “Better” an energetic reading.  And do I hear real honest-to-God brass in the background? Plair, who at age 25 founded Plair’s Music Institute of Performing Arts, also serves as vice president of Agape Jurisdictional Music Department under Bishop ...

By Bob Marovich The Journal of Gospel Music learned today from Chicago Area Gospel Announcers Guild President Yvonne Wesley-Seabrooks that Phyllis Brown of Chicago’s beloved Brown Sisters has passed away. According to the Brown Sisters website, Phyllis was the group’s bookkeeper.  It was a fitting responsibility, since she had worked in accounting for TransAmerica for more than two decades.  In addition to singing with the group, Phyllis attended the Pillar of Truth COGIC, led by her father, Pastor Ben Brown. The Stellar-nominated Brown Sisters of Chicago made the Billboard charts with “Awesome God,” a single from their 2009 Live in Chicago album on ...

Nancey Jackson Johnson The Heart of Nancey Jackson Johnson Camdon Music 2014 www.CamdonMusic.com By Bob Marovich I have enjoyed listening to Nancey Jackson Johnson solo on several projects over the past few years, beginning with “Lead Me to the Rock,” from Rev. Stef & Jubilation’s 2006 The Launch Out Project.   Nancey’s powerfully expressive voice adds luster to just about any song. Naturally, therefore, I was quite eager to hear her debut solo CD, The Heart of Nancey Jackson Johnson, released on Donnie McClurkin’s Camdon Music imprint. The album, released last month, contains songs with worship lyrics set to contemporary gospel with ...

By Bob Marovich In 2012, the Wheeler Avenue Mass Choir recorded a CD in honor of the Houston, Texas church’s fiftieth anniversary. The full-length album, Oh To Be Kept by Jesus, brought together the church’s music department and two longtime collaborators, Wheeler Avenue music minister Henry “Hanq” Neal and Leon C. Lewis, who produced the CD. Lewis wrote a song called “I Believe” for Neal, who sang lead on it. Almost immediately, the church recognized the song would become the album’s main selection. But no one could have anticipated that “I Believe” would be Neal’s last solo. The Grammy-nominated vocalist, ...

“I Believe” Dr. Marcus Cosby & the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Mass Choir From the 2012 CD Oh to Be Kept By Jesus (Anniversary Edition) Available on Amazon.com “I Believe” is a robust, stadium-sized praise anthem and assertion of personal belief from the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Mass Choir of Houston, Texas.  The orchestral flourishes come courtesy of the Nashville String Machine. The passionate song turns out to be the final recorded solo for the church’s music minister, the late Henry “Hanq” Neal.  A Fort Wayne, Indiana, native and former member of the Pentecostal Ambassadors and Donald Vails Choraleers, Neal ...