Karen Clark Sheard Live RecordingHouse of Hope, Chicago
Monday, September 9, 2013
By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog
Both Detroit and Chicago claim deep roots in gospel music. This makes for a friendly rivalry, but also plenty of fellowship, as gospel lovers are gospel lovers, no matter where they live.
Fellowship was the purpose on Monday when thousands of Chicagoans and Detroiters filled the stadium-sized House of Hope on Chicago’s far South Side for Karen Clark Sheard’s live recording.
Sheard, a four-time Grammy Award winner and member of the famed Clark Sisters (Detroit), selected for her music director and background singers the estimable (and also Grammy-winning) Donald Lawrence & Company (Chicago). The combination of Sheard’s explosive Pentecostal passion and Lawrence’s warm choral tonality were sugar and spice: different flavors but delicious together.
Coming out in ruby red platform shoes, Sheard pulled no punches, singing herself into fits on more than one occasion. Donald Lawrence & Company, which includes Tommies alumna Kim McFarland, were everything senior and gospel choruses dream of being. The confident Lawrence directed more than the choir and band: he handled the pacing of the program and afforded Sheard space to take vocal breaks after especially incendiary performances.
Present for the live recording besides the Chicago gospel cognoscenti were a large contingent from Detroit’s Greater Emmanuel Institutional COGIC, where Sheard is First Lady; her husband and Pastor of Greater Emmanuel, J. Drew Sheard; daughter Kierra; and son J. Drew II, who played drums. The rest of the Clark Sisters were in the front row, cheering their sister on to higher heights. Later, Kierra and the Clark Sisters each came up to sing a few bars, but whether those moments will make the final project is unknown.
Although the evening was filled with wonderful music—three songs in particular fell like fire on the audience—one selection stood out. The quietly graceful “Sunday Morning” encapsulated the revitalizing role of the African American church in a way few songs have done in the recent past.
Karen Clark Sheard and Donald Lawrence may well be the best Chicago-Detroit gospel combination since James Cleveland and the Voices of Tabernacle.
The CD will be available at a date to be determined on Sheard’s Karew Records, in collaboration with Lawrence’s Quietwater Entertainment and eOne Music. For more information, visit www.karewrecords.com.
Written by : Bob Marovich
Bob Marovich is a gospel music historian, author, and radio host. Founder of Journal of Gospel Music blog (formally The Black Gospel Blog) and producer of the Gospel Memories Radio Show.
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