Gospel Music Workshop of America Detroit Chapter Bringing it Back Home GMWA Detroit Chapter (release date: September 1, 2018) By Bob Marovich After listening to Bringing it Back Home, I’d say the Detroit Chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA) has the best choir of all workshop chapters in existence today. This live album, recorded on the 50th anniversary of GMWA’s founding in Detroit, Michigan, evokes those marvelous chapter choir albums and their Sunday morning-ready songs that were ubiquitous in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the home of the modern gospel choir movement is situated in Chicago, Detroit ...

“On Time” Bishop Larry D. Trotter & Sweet Holy Spirit Choir From the forthcoming Utopia Music Group CD Restored! By Bob Marovich Bishop Larry Trotter’s Sweet Holy Spirit Church on Chicago’s South Side is doing its part to “bring the choir back” (as if it ever left) with “On Time.” The radio-friendly single contains the fiery, full-voiced, no-nonsense sound that listeners come to expect from the Sweet Holy Spirit Choir. The message of God stepping in “right on time” is timeless, and when combined with the pulsating tempo at which the choir moves, the song should bring everybody to their ...

“It Is Possible” Jeanetta Williams (independent release 2014) For information: mdwil48@gmail.com By Bob Marovich If you are a gospel choir enthusiast, you know Jeanetta “Songbird” Williams from her solo turns as a member of the Thompson Community Singers. A few years ago, Williams gathered together friends and family to be her background singers on “It Is Possible,” a recording of her own composition. The singer offers a raw and genuine treatment to this simple, inspirational contemporary gospel song with references to Philippians 4:13. The melodic hook in the title verse hearkens back to the Hawkins style. A radio edit comprised of the best parts ...

Shunice Hill-Sullivan He Won’t Leave Me Alone (EP) Independent (release date: September 1, 2015) www.ShuniceHillSullivan.com By Bob Marovich On her EP He Won’t Leave Me Alone, Christian singer Shunice Hill-Sullivan eschews gospel music histrionics for understated lyrics and arrangements. A gentle electric piano guides a small quiet storm combo through the four-cut project, which features prayer closet conversations with God. For example, on “Breakthrough,” Shunice speaks to God from a place of unspecific personal trials. She seeks forgiveness and a return to discipleship, knowing that a breakthrough is possible only after she is back in God’s good graces. “Draw Me ...

Ananais Montague Remember Me: Songs from the Cross Vol. 1 Ananais Montague Music www.amusac.com By Bob Marovich Remember Me: Songs from the Cross, Volume 1, from the Chicago born and raised Ananais “Markey” Montague, is a two-disc, seventeen song project that appears to have two main purposes: to follow the narrative from Jesus’ entrance to Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) to his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; and to introduce the songs, either wholly composed or co-written by Montague, to other music ministers. What Montague provides is a collection of contemporary church choir songs–some simple, others more challenging–that combine the classical underpinning of Richard Smallwood with ...

“Your Blessing is on its Way” God’s Posse From The Kind of God We Serve: Live in Chicago (EP) Trewworks Music Group/Denzell Music Group By Bob Marovich The Chicago-based quartet God’s Posse offers a traditional drive-tempo workout in “Your Blessing is on its Way.” The infectious backbeat, the singers’ palpable enthusiasm, the muscular music, and the live audience’s handclapping are ideal complements to the song’s message of hope and encouragement. It also points out the importance of recording gospel music in front of an audience or congregation. Gospel music recorded in the studio is fine, but there’s something magical about hearing a ...

“I’m Saved” Dexter Walker & Zion Movement (release date: December 1, 2017) Available from Amazon.com By Bob Marovich Chicago is a choir town. Always has been. One of Chicago’s current crop of choir stars is Dexter Walker & Zion Movement. Crowned the best church choir in America at the 2012 Verizon How Sweet the Sound contest, the group has a new single, “I’m Saved.” “I’m Saved” evokes the exuberance of Ricky Dillard & New G and Chicago Mass Choir with its energetic tempo, rhythm thick with tambourine jingles (it’s subtitled “The Tambourine Song,” after all), and rotund gospel choir harmonies ...

“Jesus is Lord” Calvin Bridges From the PNEUMA/Spirit Recordings, Inc. EP Jesus is Lord (release date: July 18, 2017) https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/calvinbridges15 By Bob Marovich Back in February of this year, Greater Harvest M. B. Church on Chicago’s South Side was the live recording headquarters for the award-winning gospel singer-songwriter Calvin Bridges (“I Can Go to God in Prayer”). Among the songs he introduced that evening was “Jesus Is Lord.” This radio-friendly R&P song evokes the effervescence of the artist himself in its periodic staccato blasts of funk from the musicians and tight call-and-response between Bridges and his choir. Bridges wraps his ...

“It Pays to Serve Jesus” Lady LaVarnga Hubbard Utopia Music Group (2017) Available from digital media stores By Bob Marovich No matter how many vocalists travel down the P&W path, you can count on Lady LaVarnga Hubbard, the Duchess of Gospel, to keep delivering church rousers the old-school way. “It Pays to Serve Jesus” is the latest single (and the third) pulled from Hubbard’s album, Better Is Coming, released on Bishop Larry Trotter’s Utopia Music Group. True to form, the Duchess glides along the backbeat, inviting listeners to sidestep the static and remember that following Christ is the route to solving ...

Chicago, IL, May 23, 2017: Chicago Gospel Music Legend Bishop Willie A. Treadwell, 86, transitioned from this world Sunday, May 21, 2017, at Generations at Oakton Place in Des Plaines, IL. He was born in Anniston, AL. on February 28, 1931, to the late David and Limmer-Jane Treadwell. Bishop Treadwell was drafted into the United States Army in 1952 where we fought in the Korean War. On April 9, 1955, Bishop Treadwell founded the Treadwell Community Singers with Frankie Marie Powell (Treadwell). During this time Bishop Treadwell served in ministry under the leadership of the late Pastor Governor Powell of ...