Jeanette Jones Dreams All Come True Playback Records (release date: May 19, 2017) www.playbackrecords.net By Bob Marovich The title of Playback’s compilation of every known secular and sacred solo recording by San Francisco singer Jeanette Jones is deliberately ironic. All the more so in that Jones’ beautifully-sung ballad, “Dreams All Come True,” which gives the album its title, was recorded in 1968 but did not see the light of day until 2000. As Alec Palao’s well-crafted and sympathetic essay for this compilation suggests, whatever career aspirations the comely alto may have had seemed never to materialize, despite her obvious vocal talent. So one released pop single ...

“Fly Away” Shonda English feat. Dorothy Norwood Available at digital music stores www.shondaenglish.com By Bob Marovich It might be intimidating to duet with a legend such as Dorothy Norwood, but to Shonda English, The Storyteller of Gospel is “Aunt Dot.” It was “Aunt Dot,” in fact, who brought Bob Jeffreys and Sanchez Harley’s easy-going, bittersweet “Fly Away” to her attention. Good timing. English was just getting over the loss of her father, Bishop W. T. English, and needed some inspirational cheering up. “Fly Away” fit the bill. Reflecting on the day they will fly away to the resting place where ...

“Trouble in My Way” New Friendship Anointed Voices feat. Betty Lott From the CD A Long Time Coming: Legacy Fulfilled https://www.facebook.com/NewFriendshipMissionaryBaptistChurch/ By Bob Marovich “Trouble in My Way” is not the kind of gospel song you hear on urban radio, necessarily, but it is the kind of gospel song you hear in small churches located in urban centers and small towns across America. It is with gusto that Betty Holmes-Lott leads Gary, Indiana’s Anointed Voices of the New Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. This superb pewburner has been sung at every conceivable tempo by some of gospel music’s greatest artists—from the ...

“Lord, Give Me Strength” – The Prof. Harold Boggs Story By Opal Louis Nations During the dark ages of slavery, those African Americans who escaped bondage and headed north to more liberal, free states traveled “The Underground Railroad,” led by those who risked their lives in the name of freedom. Escapees from Southern tobacco plantations, cotton and rice plantations and farms made their way up through Richmond, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Others, taking the route that crossed Lake Erie into Windsor, Ontario, journeyed through Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland or Detroit. This route also took escapees to safe houses in Seville, Medina, ...

“I Am Blessed” MarQuez Curtis feat. Tiffanie “Tutu” Agee Mary Elizabeth Music Group (2017) By Bob Marovich For those wondering what Tiffanie “Tutu” Agee of the Truthettes has been up to lately, it’s joining MarQuez Curtis in giving effusive testimony for blessings bestowed by God—blessings that neither singer takes for granted. That’s the premise of “I Am Blessed,” a spirited hand-clapper that blends the sleekness of contemporary gospel with the churchiness of quartet singing, complete with a vamp that could have gone on even longer. From Memphis, Tennessee, MarQuez Curtis attends Light of Glory International Church (LOGIC) under the leadership ...

“He Won’t Let You Down” Victoria Brown From the album Journey (release date: May 2, 2017) www.victoriabrownministries.com By Bob Marovich Hearing “He Won’t Let You Down” leaves no doubt that traditional gospel is in Victoria Brown’s DNA. Brown travels from sweet to shout on this bluesy and evangelistic selection. It is as much an internal conversation about inaccurate past assumptions as a directive to the listener that only God can make things right. The song’s vamp gives Brown space to extemporize, which I imagine pulls audiences out of their seat in affirmation whenever Brown sings it live. No stranger to the recording process, ...

“You Can Call on Jesus” Donnie, Darryl & the Joyboyz From the JSound Records album He Did It (release date: October 21, 2016) By Bob Marovich From Nashville, Tennessee, Donnie and Darryl Frierson are known as the “smallest men in gospel” because they each hit four-and-a-half feet tall and not much more than that. But good things come in small packages, and the brothers prove it on the 2016 selection, “You Can Call on Jesus.”  It’s a joyous Sunday morning shouting song with a quartet backbeat that has the live recording audience clapping along. The Friersons sing the encouraging word ...

Bishop J. D. Means Sr. Presents A Tribute to Sunday Morning Gospel, Volume 1, Part 1 Mean Means Music Group http://bishopjdmeanssr.com/ By Bob Marovich In his introductory remarks on A Tribute to Sunday Morning Gospel, Volume 1, Part 1, Dr. R. L. White Jr. says that we have greatness all around us but we fail to recognize it. He is speaking specifically of the greatness of Bishop J. D. Means Sr., but his words also ring true about the venerable hymns and gospels of the church. In our quest for the newest and hottest, we leave some of the most ...

“Keep Pushin” Keith “Wonderboy” Johnson SRT Entertainment (release date: March 24, 2017) To a hard-charging funk arrangement, Keith “Wonderboy” Johnson encourages listeners to not give up because God “will never leave you by yourself.” Working two jobs? Body in pain? “Just keep pushin’.” A young man born with an old soul, Johnson has helped keep the traditional quartet sound alive, though “Keep Pushin” has more in common with mid-‘70s Isley Brothers. Nevertheless, Johnson lets loose with a good old quartet shout several times during the song. Johnson recently paid tribute to Spencer Taylor Jr., “the Godfather of Gospel,” with a ...

Leon Triplett God is in Control Triplett Records www.TriplettRecords.com By Bob Marovich In the early 1970s, Chicago’s Leon Triplett was making soul records for Curtom/Thomas Records with his twin brother Levi. The Triplett Twins’ 1972 “Pretty Please” even got a second life when it was heard in Big Stone Gap, an Adriana Trigiani-directed film starring Ashley Judd, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jane Krakowski. Leon went on to be a songwriter for Brunswick Records and continues to work the circuit. With the seven-track God is in Control, Leon Triplett goes gospel, stamping a ‘70s disco-soul style onto his songs. Swirls of synth ...