The Testimony of Wess Morgan

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog

To write and sing the blues you have to live the blues.

So it is with gospel.  The best gospel songs come from equally challenging life circumstances.  The difference, as Mahalia Jackson explained, is that blues does not always offer hope, while gospel does.

Gospel singer Wess Morgan can relate.  Birthed in a particularly painful moment of his life, the song, “I Choose to Worship,” was nominated for a Stellar Award.

TBGB spoke with Mr. Morgan about his journey to recovery, to music success, and to the launch of his three-day event, RecoveryFest. 

WM: When I was a kid, I hung around with an older crowd, but I was too vulnerable to be exposed to the things I was exposed to.  I got introduced to marijuana at age twelve, and by thirteen I was smoking crack and fooling with cocaine.  From there on in, my life spiraled downward very fast.  I was in and out of rehab centers, juvenile detention centers, county jail, court systems, halfway houses.  I was always in trouble.  I got in fights and had an armed robbery charge.  I ran away from home and my parents had to hire investigators to find me.  I was strung out on cocaine for fifteen years.  I should still be locked up right now, if not dead.

WM: When I got the armed robbery charge, the judge sent me to a year-long faith-based program.  I got cleaned up and got married.  I was around 20 years old.  But I started fooling with trouble again, and that was probably the worst time of it all.  I would leave the house and not come back for months.  Strung out in hotel rooms.  My kids might not see me for two or three weeks, or a month.  My daughter would hold my leg and beg me not to leave the house.  My marriage was disintegrating.

I ended up getting into a bad car accident during a drug deal.  I flipped the car.  Both of my friends in the car were flown to Vanderbilt University.  One of them wasn’t expected to live.  They took me straight to jail.

I was so tired of living in and out of trouble constantly.  When I came to myself, I said, “God, I don’t want to get out of jail unless you give me a strategy to never come back.”  God spoke one word to me: accountability.  That was the last thing I wanted to hear, but I was so eager to get out of that mess, I told the Lord I would give a year and a half of complete accountability. 

I moved in with my family and I didn’t go anywhere without my mom and dad for a year and a half.  Miraculously, my court date was postponed for a year and a half.  It was like God tested me to see if I was really willing to do what I said I was going to do. 

WM: My mother and father have pastored for years, so I’ve always been around gospel music and always had a love for it.  They used to play the Hawkins Family, Andrae Crouch, James Cleveland.  My dad, he’s a jazz guitarist, so we had a lot of jazz, R&B and gospel around the house.  My mom was an organist. 

WM: Music was a big part of my life, so when I got saved, a friend of mine who owned a studio and knew I was a singer said, “Come over to the studio and let’s just work on some music.”  He’s the one who really got me started.  It was at the studio where I wrote “Look at Me Now.”  I wrote that whole project.  I had written a song or two before but I didn’t know I had that gift until then.

Despite the fact that I stumbled into music and really didn’t know what I was going to do with my career, the album was received incredibly well.  I didn’t know how to promote the project, but the album did extremely well.  People who did know about it embraced it.

WM: Look at Me Nowwas more my solo project, my testimonial stuff.  I had always wanted to do a Praise & Worship project.  I was going through a whole lot at that time.  I had been clean for four or five years, but some of the stuff I had done while I was out there started coming back.  I was so upset because I was finally getting some traction with my marriage, but all of that stuff from my past was entering my future and my success.  Man, it was tough.  I’m telling you, it was tough!  I’ll never forget, I woke up one morning and the words started coming to me:

For so long I was silent / For so long I didn’t have a song of praise;

Clouds blocked my way / But there was a voice speaking to me.

And the song just came to me, “I Choose to Worship.”  People went haywire!  I was nominated for a Stellar Award for Song of the Year.

WM: You know, being a preacher’s kid, people would say to my parents, “Leave that boy alone.  Cut him off.  He will hurt your ministry.”  People look down on you.  But with God’s help, I was able to overcome and escape prison and death, so I wanted to do something for all the addicts.  I started RecoveryFest, which is a three day celebration of recovery.  We feature seminars, concerts, and comedy.  It’s about living, it’s about where we are right now, in spite of what the enemy tried to do.  Rehabilitation centers bring people down in buses.  Check it out at www.recovery-fest.com.

WM: I am done recording a new project that is scheduled to come out on February 14 of next year.

WM: I had an uncle I admired who wore bow ties.  Bow ties are different, and I guess I wanted to stand out, run against the grain.

For more information about Wess Morgan, visit www.wessmorgan.com.