Gene Moore The Future Motown Gospel (release date: July 28, 2017) www.motowngospel.com By Bob Marovich It doesn’t take hearing gospel artist Gene Moore singing “Summer Soft” to feel Stevie Wonder’s inspiration throughout Moore’s EP, The Future. “Summer Soft” is the bonus track on a project that has a Wonder feel all over it (sans harmonica), especially during its more rhythmically animated tracks. And it’s available on Motown Gospel, so there’s that connection to Wonder’s roots, also. Moore’s voice, like Wonder’s, is handsome, flexible, and melodic. Yet it is only when he is singing with a minimum of accompaniment, as on the ...

  The Playlist – JGM Best of 2017: “Isaiah 40 (Intro)” – Preashea Hilliard (Daywind Records) “Jesus (What Grace Have I Found in Thee)” – Adam Everett (Polytone Records) “I Refuse” – Anthony Brown & group therAPy (Tyscot Records) “Wings” – Natasha Owens (Maharlow Records) “God’s Highway” – Sandra McCracken (independent release) “I Give You Praise” – Robert Person feat. Richard Smallwood (REP) “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” – Out of the Dust (Discovery House Music) “Enter In” – Chrystal Rucker (HBK Media) “Fighters” – Cheryl Fortune (Tyscot Records) “Anywhere We Are” – Nichole Nordeman (Sparrow / Capitol ...

              Playlist for Episode 120: Come too far – New Golden Crowns of Louisville, Kentucky Not alone – Minister Tim White (from Eric Maurice Clark EP) Sweet Beulah land – Eddie Ruth Bradford I’m saved – Dexter Walker & Zion Movement Fill this place – Geneatha Wright Wood and nails – Josh Garrels and Audrey Assad Triumphant – Michelle Brooks-Thompson Here I am – Teresa Perea of Family Bonded Fighters – Cheryl Fortune Breathe again – Swingin’ Hammers Thank you Lord – Melody & Harmony Give me Jesus – Dr. Clarence Eggleton & the ...

Cheryl Fortune Simply Cheryl LuDawn Music / Tyscot Records (release date: October 13, 2017) www.tyscot.com By Bob Marovich On a selection from her album Simply Cheryl, gospel singer-songwriter Cheryl Fortune sings: “You don’t know the half of it, and I just can’t tell it all.” Cheryl, a background vocalist for Kirk Franklin and the wife of gospel artist James Fortune until their marriage dissolved over his domestic abuse, may not tell it all but we get the drift. The album’s coded references to her recent personal history are exactly what we would have expected from this, her debut solo album.  Anything else would have ...

Kirk Franklin brought his “20 Years in One Night” Live Nation Tour to the Chicago Theater, April 1. By Bob Marovich Filling two and one-half hours of a concert retrospective with enough familiar songs to keep the audience engaged might be a stretch for many gospel artists, but Kirk Franklin’s repertory proved more than sufficient for the task when the the top-selling gospel music artist brought his “20 Years in One Night” tour to the historic Chicago Theater Friday night, April 1. It’s splitting hairs, but really 23 years, since “Why We Sing,” from Franklin’s 1993 debut album for GospoCentric ...