“The Sound of Revival” Edwrin Sutton From the Black Smoke Music Worldwide CD The Revival (release date: May 8, 2021) By Robert M. Marovich Gospel singer-songwriter Edwrin Sutton sets the nineteenth-century Presbyterian hymn “Revive Us Again” to a contemporary rhythmic call-and-response motive between him and his troupe of background singers. Sutton’s raw-edged singing during the song’s come-to-Jesus vamp evokes an evangelist at a tent revival, Bible aloft, walking the aisles, shouting the spirit down, and turning up the temperature near to praise break levels. Third cousin to soul superstar Otis Redding, Edwrin Sutton is North Carolina-born and living in the ...

“I Hear Rain” Edwrin Sutton & Kingdom Culture Blacksmoke Music Worldwide (release date: May 2, 2019) “I Hear Rain” is a song of encouragement in a time of despair. Its spoken call and sung response between Sutton and Kingdom Culture evokes James Fortune and Kirk Franklin’s own use of the technique. The coming storm is nothing to fear, the ensemble sings, because the rain means greater is coming. In anticipation of the gathering clouds and the eventual downpour of blessings, the group builds the song’s tension, though it ends before the sweet release. This is a case where the longer ...