Angelo & Veronica The Truth A&V Music (release date: November 23, 2017) www.angeloandveronica.com By Bob Marovich Brown-eyed gospel duo Angelo & Veronica first made waves during the 1990s with their messages of overcoming sung with the suavity of BeBe & CeCe Winans. They racked up three Dove Awards in the process. Their new album, The Truth, offers a remix of two of their best-known hits alongside new songs, each delivered with the husband-and-wife team’s trademark passion and laid-back R&B backdrop. Their voices have matured, however, to where they sound more like Michael McDonald and Anita Baker these days than BeBe and CeCe. Maturity and ...

Anthony Brown & group therAPy [a long way from sunday] Tyscot Records (release date: July 28, 2017) www.tyscot.com By Bob Marovich [a long way from Sunday] is Anthony Brown & group therAPy’s third album for Tyscot Records and the follow-up to 2015’s Everyday Jesus, which earned the group no less than ten Stellar Awards in 2016, including Song of the Year for “Worth.” The album may be third in chronological order, but it is number one in terms of quality and consistency of message. Brown opens with a brief narration that sets the album’s tone. He says he was “raised ...

Javon Inman Agape * Eros Liberty Music (release date: November 10, 2017) www.javoninman.com By Bob Marovich Javon Inman ladles an ample serving of amor into Agape * Eros, a 40 minute musical journey into the realms of spiritual and human love. Agape * Eros reminds me of Fred Hammond’s 2012 offering God, Love & Romance. If Hammond’s release was a tad controversial at the time (truthfully, though, there’s been tension between agape and eros in gospel music for a while), combining sacred and human love on one album is all but de rigueur today. All but one of the opening tracks on Inman’s latest ...

J Kingdom Reconciled Reshift Music Group By Bob Marovich J Kingdom’s new album Reconciled bristles with bright, optimistic melodies and lyrics of unfettered praise and gratitude to God for everything He has done, even when we don’t deserve it. J Kingdom, aka Pastor Michael J. T. Fisher of Greater Zion Baptist Church in Compton, California, introduces the “don’t deserve it” part of the equation at the outset, during the opening supplication, “Keep Your Hand on Me.” He brings it up time and again throughout the album. It’s the human struggle to follow the right path but erring along the way. It all comes down, J Kingdom ...

Curtis Fondren You Are My Everything (EP) GreCur Entertainment (2017) By Bob Marovich Those who know the Chicago gospel scene know Curtis Fondren. A percussionist who has worked with untold numbers of gospel artists, the Reverend Dr. Clay Evans’s Fellowship M.B. Church Choir in particular, Fondren has participated in more recordings than one can count. Most recently, he was holding down the beat for the artists on Lift Him Up: Chicago Gospel Keyboard Masters, a 2016 release by The Sirens Records. You’ll hear Fondren on his new EP, You Are My Everything, as a musician and songwriter. He has trotted ...

Soul Survivor: A Biography of Al Green. By Jimmy McDonough. Da Capo Press, 2017. 432pp. (hardcover). Index, illustrations. ISBN 978-0-306-82267-4. $28 By Bob Marovich “This was a very challenging project,” journalist and biographer Jimmy McDonough concedes in the acknowledgements of Soul Survivor, his biography of Al Green. You can almost hear McDonough heave a sigh of relief after writing that statement. Chronicling the life of such a defiantly inscrutable entertainer and minister as Green would be difficult enough with the protagonist’s participation. Instead, McDonough had to proceed essentially without Bishop Green’s blessing, relying for his information on decades of existing taped ...

“Go Tell It On the Mountain” Dr. Ray Berryhill & the Celebration Choir of RLCI KNEntertainment LLC (digital release date: Dec 19, 2017) By Bob Marovich The Celebration Choir of Resurrected Life Church International on Chicago’s North Side gospelizes this cheery Christmas spiritual with powerful doses of 1980s church choir energy. Dr. Ray Allen Berryhill preaches during the vamp as the choir responds with lethal attack harmonies. Senior Pastor Berryhill comes from strong gospel mettle, having worked as minister of music for the late “Singing” Sammy Lewis, who was an early member of the Roberta Martin Singers before he became a solo artist ...

Various Artists Family Bonded: Musical Stage Play Soundtrack Sea Fields Productions (release date: October 6, 2017) http://seafieldsproductions.wixsite.com/2013 By Bob Marovich In October, theatergoers in Sacramento, California, were treated to a gospel musical called Family Bonded about four siblings who, being abandoned by their mother, are raised by their sister. Not long after the show ended its October run, Chris Fields, author of the stage play and composer of the featured songs, released a soundtrack starring the original cast. In addition to Fields, talented cast members Yvette Pennington, Leticia Woods, Gregory Allen, Teresa Perea, Josette Williams, and Donnell Gray get turns at ...

By Bob Marovich If you think the story of music in Detroit begins and ends with Motown, think again. Detroit’s gospel music legacy goes back many decades, way before Berry Gordy started Hitsville, USA.  The contributions that Detroiters have made to gospel music continue to enrich the genre today. The story of gospel music in Detroit was just waiting to be told by the right person.  That right person is Marcel West.  With great passion and diligence, West spent years mining archival photos, videos, and other rare ephemera, and interviewing the living legends who took gospel music around the world. The result is a documentary DVD called Detroit: The Gospel Journey. The ...

“Silent Night” Pastor Alyn E. Waller From Christmas with Pastor Alyn E. Waller (release date: November 27, 2017) By Bob Marovich Don’t let the introductory avalanche of synthesized sound stop you from hearing Pastor Alyn E. Waller’s affecting take on this timeless carol. He improvises skillfully—not too much, not too little—to excavate the gospel within the soul of this simple melody. The dreamy sax that you hear leading the interlude becomes the second voice on the second verse.  Nicely done. Dr. Waller is Senior Pastor of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.