“Praying and Believing” Erica Campbell My Block Records (release date: August 25, 2019) By Bob Marovich On this quintessential “coming to Jesus” song, Mary Mary’s Erica Campbell recognizes that the problems and complications she’s experiencing (first verse) and society is facing (second verse) are ours to accept but not to fix. Rather than blaming God for all the troubles, Erica prays to God for healing and strength—for herself and everyone, including “the mother praying for her child to come home.” The arrangement, featuring dramatic percussion and an imploring choir, gives Erica plenty of room to improvise. By the end, she ...

Marvin Sapp Close RCA Inspiration (release date: September 29, 2017) www.rcainspiration.com By Bob Marovich Ever since 2007’s Thirsty and its crossover hit, “Never Would Have Made It,” a Marvin Sapp album release has become something of a special event. As a result, every one of his albums, starting with Thirsty, has hit the number one position on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums chart. Close, released tomorrow on RCA Inspiration, is probably going to be the next number one for Bishop Sapp, whose muscular voice and aggressive delivery reminds me of his fellow Commissioned member, Fred Hammond. The album, produced by longtime collaborator Aaron Lindsey, opens ...

“Too Hard Not To” Tina Campbell Malaco Music Group / Gee Tee Creative (2017) www.malaco.com By Bob Marovich Tina Campbell’s new single, “Too Hard Not To,” feels like an intimate girlfriend-to-girlfriend conversation about the difficulty, and also the importance, of forgiving and forgetting. The intimacy not only comes from the song’s lyric, but also from the stripped down acoustic piano accompaniment. Delivering the lovely melody with grace and tenderness, Campbell reminds the listener that no matter how bad a situation gets, no matter how hard it is to forgive those who have done the unthinkable to you, there’s “someone so loving and ...

By Bob Marovich What does it take to compile an annual survey of the Best of the Best in gospel music? Phil Thornton knows. As Senior Vice President and General Manager for RCA Inspiration, which just released WOW Gospel 2017, the latest in a twenty-year string of two-CD samplings of the finest in African American gospel music, Thornton is now an integral part of the process. “I remember purchasing the collections years ago,” he told the Journal of Gospel Music. “Actually being part of the process feels like I’ve come full circle. It’s an honor to be involved with a ...

Various Artists WOW GOSPEL 2017 RCA Inspiration (release date: January 27, 2017) www.rcainspiration.com By Bob Marovich In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the annual WOW GOSPEL collection was my personal tutor for learning about the gospel scene. Back in those days, I was focused exclusively on vintage gospel music, and particularly the contributions of quartets. I looked forward with great anticipation to the next WOW GOSPEL project so I could take another lesson in modern gospel. I often purchased the two-CD set the day it was released. It was through WOW GOSPEL that I first encountered Richard Smallwood’s “Total Praise,” Mary ...

By Bob Marovich “Keep pushing and hold on to God, because there’s a way out.” That’s how Grammy and Dove Award nominee Dayna Caddell describes the theme of her first full-length solo album, Push, released July 8 on Forty Entertainment/eOne. The album’s positive disposition and personal testimonies encourage listeners to overcome their own personal and professional struggles. Or as Dayna told JGM, Push is about “my stories, stories I’ve witnessed, and perseverance in knowing there’s a way out.” To say Dayna was brought up in a musical home would be an understatement. She was surrounded by music, largely because her father, Oscar Caddell, was a music ...

“God’s Got My Back” TaMyya J MM Music Group (release date: September 2016) www.tamyyaj.com Set to an urban AC arrangement, “God’s Got My Back,” the thought-provoking single from radio host and gospel singer TaMyya J of New Jersey, is about flipping one’s thinking from negative to positive. It’s a call to develop the confidence to ignore that needling inner voice that tries to diminish you. TaMyya once thought “I’m not strong enough, wise enough, smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough.”  Now, with God in her life, she sings “I’m fine just by being me.” “God’s Got My Back” falls lyrically ...

Viktory Tomorrow Came Viktorious Music Group (release date: June 17, 2016) www.r4ever.com By Bob Marovich The challenges of being different and the importance of overcoming the divisiveness of difference are at the heart of Tomorrow Came, a Christian hip hop project from the Chicago-born Viktory. Three tracks in particular address this issue in living color. Based on a true story, “Lunch Tables” features piercingly cool singing support from Ashliann (herself a mixture of cultures) as it tells the story of a “yellow kid” trying to find a seat in the school cafeteria, but nobody wants him because he’s neither black ...

Courtesy of The Front Page Firm: Charles Jenkins & Fellowship Chicago’s “Any Given Sunday” Takes Four Awards; And Tasha Cobbs’ “One Place Live” Rounds Out Top 3 Winners with Three Wins Gospel Music’s Biggest Night Premieres on TV One, Sunday, March 6 at 6 p.m. ET; Also Broadcast March 12-April 10 in National Syndication On 150 Stations in Over 120 Markets LAS VEGAS, NV – Feb. 22, 2016 – Anthony Brown & group therAPy made history on Saturday night as their album, Everyday Jesus, was blessed with 10 trophies during the 31st Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards at the Las ...

CHICAGO, Jan. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ : Central City Productions today announced that comedian, syndicated radio and TV personality Rickey Smiley (Dish Nation, Rickey Smiley For Real) and actress and TV personality Sherri Shepherd (Ride Along 2, The View) will return as co-hosts of the 31st Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards, having hosted together in 2014. Hailed as the “biggest night in gospel music,” this year’s Stellar Awards will be held at the Las Vegas Orleans Arena on Saturday, February 20, 2016. The telecast will premiere on TV One during the week of March 6, as well as in broadcast syndication ...