For Isaac Simpson, Life and Music are a Process

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

Life can change in an instant.

Ask gospel singer-songwriter-group leader Isaac Simpson.

In the summer of 2006, Simpson was driving his vehicle in his home state of Ohio when he heard gunfire. One bullet entered the rear window of his car and struck him in the back. “It was a .22 bullet,” Simpson said, “which means it didn’t go right through me but ricocheted through every major intestine in my body.”

Simpson had just enough strength to drive himself to the nearest hospital, but it was a children’s hospital. The medical personnel stabilized him, kept him conscious, and transferred him to a regular hospital. The singer recovered, but only after ten operations, three days on life support, and a collapsed lung. A hospital bed was placed in his living room because he could not climb stairs. He had to learn to walk all over again.

The process of recovery – and its life metaphor – inspired the title track of Simpson’s new album, The Process, recorded with his group, Divine Providence. The album was released February 7 through a partnership between EMI Gospel and Soul Stride Music.

Like most gospel artists, Simpson got his start in church. For him, the church was Greater Ebenezer in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

“My mother was a singer and choir director and put me in the choir to sing,” Simpson told TBGB. “But what really pushed me out there was when I was fourteen years and became the choir director.” To lead the church’s youth and mass choir, Simpson drew inspiration from what he calls the “electrifying” and “atmosphere changing” music of John P. Kee and Hezekiah Walker.

The group’s big break came in 2005 when they participated in a Gospel Music Association competition in Nashville. Out of 100 contestants, Simpson and DP were chosen as a top ten finalist and ended up winning the competition. The following year they traveled to Music in the Rockies to compete on a national level, and ended up winning in three categories.

“There were a lot of record company executives on the panel who heard us and saw us,” Simpson said. “I thought that’s how it was going to happen. But there was a young man who heard us sing in a church while we were in town. We found out he was the president of a record company and he wanted to sign us. The ball has been rolling ever since!”

Simpson describes his music as “urban contemporary gospel, but really a cross-pollination, a mixture of the old and the new.” His lyrics are plucked right from his life circumstances, especially from the Summer 2006 incident.

“I was getting ready to do a live recording at the time of the accident,” Simpson said. “It was going to be that summer. I had everybody lined up. I had to cancel, and working as a part-time schoolteacher, I didn’t know if I was going to be paid.

“I questioned God. I just really wanted to give up. I said, ‘God, why did I go through this?’ And God said to me, ‘Son, the reason I’m taking you through this is because I can trust you with tragedy. I’m qualifying you to take you to another place in your ministry. You have to be ready to weather the storm when it comes.’”

Simpson reflected, “You know how they say the higher you go, the more devils you have to fight? So the title track is my life’s testimony, my process. The lyrics say don’t give up now, you’ve come too far to turn around; keep holding on to God’s promise and keep trusting in Him. It’s a song of hope to encourage people, regardless of whether or not they are Christian.”

Another of Simpson’s compositions on The Process is the tender “Hide in Me.” “Sometimes I listen to the words and all I can think is, ‘Did that come out of me? I wrote those lyrics?’ It comes from Psalms 91:1. When you go through your process, sometimes you want to go into hiding and not come out because you don’t want anyone to see how bad you look.”

Simpson and DP are currently on a promotional tour for the album. They recently appeared on the Bobby Jones television program, did a music video shoot in Chicago, and are headed to the East Coast and a TBN taping in New York.  Last month, they appeared at the Gospel Announcers Awards ceremony in Nashville as part of the Stellar Awards weekend festivities.

“We all can relate to going through situations in our lives,” Simpson reflected. “Oftentimes, though, people don’t want to talk about the process. By not talking or not dealing with the process, people want to give up in the midst of it because process doesn’t always feel good.”

For more information on Isaac Simpson and DP, visit http://www.isaacsimpson.com/.