The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir – Love Lead the Way

The BrooklynTabernacle Choir

BrooklynTabernacle Music (2013)

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog

The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir notches its second five-star CD in a row with Love Lead the Way.

I have always considered the six-time Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir the hipper, cooler sibling of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or a more soulful Up With People.  The multicultural, multi-ethnic choir, led by the talented Carol Cymbala, was blending gospel with CCM long before it was popular and has never wavered from this format.

Produced by Cymbala and Jason Michael Webb, Love Lead the Way is the group’s 27th record and the first for its own label, Brooklyn Tabernacle Music.  It contains lush praise ballads and rock-infused anthems, such as “We Lift Your Name,” where the ensemble sings, “We are not ashamed to lift your name,” and it is quite clear from their demonstrative voices that they are not.  Regardless of the musical underpinning of individual selections, the album maintains the choir’s trademark thunderous wave of electric spirit and tight harmonies with melodies that tug at the heart.

There are so many quality selections on the album, it’s hard to choose the best, though in my book, the prayerful and peaceful anthem of surrender, “Take Me As I Am,” sung beautifully by Karen Melendez, is tops.  Also, the choir’s arrangement of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” sung at President Obama’s inauguration last January and included here, comes as close to Wilhousky’s majestic version as any arrangement I have ever heard.

“Breathe” features rich orchestral work—the marvelous Nashville String Machine was tapped to assist—and clever chord changes to a rhythm that mimics soul-cleansing breathing.  “Working It Out” is for listeners looking for more gospel than CCM, and “Let God Arise” falls within the currently popular P&W style.

Love Lead the Way is the soundtrack of joy.