Jason Nelson: Shifting the Atmosphere…and Maintaining Life Balance

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

After their first gig together, Donald Lawrence told Jason, “I’m going to call you. I want you to do some stuff with me.” Jason thought it might just be “that hype talk you sometimes hear, but he really called me and asked me to do some studio work for him. As a result of that, I sang on his I Speak Life record.”

For Jason, working with Donald Lawrence was “phenomenal. He’s a great teacher. I discovered he knows your voice almost as good as you do. He helped me find places vocally that I had not been able to tap into prior to working with him. I’m able to use that information to this day.  Singing with Donald also put the bug in me to record my own album, so in 2005, I did I Shall Live. It has been an upward journey since then.”

When Bishop Nelson retired from active ministry in 2007, Jason was named pastor of Greater Bethlehem Temple.  Jason believes that being a minister helps his gospel singing. “As a singer, it’s easy to just rely on your vocal ability. I have discovered that, in this industry, if you don’t have something to say as well as something to sing, you are going to be in trouble.”

Jason has plenty to say. He began writing songs more than ten years ago. One of his prestigious clients has been Stellar Award-winner Pastor Marvin Sapp.

“Marvin used to come to my church and preach all the time,” he recounted. “This was right after he started working with Commissioned.” Sapp even suggested Jason replace him in Commissioned. “I decided not to do that,” he said, “but we stayed connected for years.

“One time Marvin was preaching in a church where I was singing and he heard my song, ‘Place of Worship.’ He came over and asked if he could record it. I said, ‘Go ahead!’ Then he called me and said MaLinda [Sapp’s late wife] told him he couldn’t record ‘Place of Worship’ if he didn’t also record [another one of my songs] ‘Thirsty.’ I said to Marvin: ‘Why are we even having this conversation? I said to go ahead! You can do whatever you want to!’”

“Thirsty” became the title track of the album that included Sapp’s monster gospel hit, “Never Would Have Made It.” He went on to record Jason’s “Don’t Count Me Out” on Here I Am.

“That particular experience told me I could have a great career as a songwriter, not necessarily as a singer,” Jason said, “so I kind of resigned myself to not pursuing a big label deal. I just wanted to keep writing. But when Verity asked me to sign with them, I was like, ‘Hmmm…okay!’”

Jason signed with Verity and released Shifting the Atmosphere May 22, 2012.

“Shifting the atmosphere is the intent of the record,” Jason said. “It’s not about a song per se, but about creating an environment where people will be able to tap into their relationship with God and ultimately bring Him into their space. This will lead to their experiencing God in such a profound way that something in their life will significantly change. The whole record is about taking people on that journey into seeing God from a new perspective.”

Jason acknowledges that being a pastor, singer, husband, and father requires significant life balance. “It’s about prioritizing. There are some things that you have to say ‘no’ to, so you can have balance. If you don’t have balance, that loss of equilibrium is going to cause you to fall over, whether it means fatigue, making a crucial error, or falling into sin of some sort. You have to have balance or your life will spiral out of control.

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