Richard Smallwood with Vision – Promises

Richard Smallwood with Vision
Promises
Verity Gospel Music Group 2011
http://www.verityrecords.com/

It’s been six years since Richard Smallwood released a new full-length album. After his mother died in 2005, the singer-songwriter thought that his gift “had dried up. I tried to write and nothing would come.”

That gift, as everyone knows, is the creation and dissemination of classical-influenced gospel hymnody that can be heard in churches around the world. Majestic, bold, anthemic, contemplative and Bible-based are adjectives used to describe Richard Smallwood’s music. They are also more than adequate descriptors of his new album, Promises, released in stores today.

Many of the songs on Promises, which continues the artist’s penchant for one-word album titles, seem ready-made for worship teams and choirs, most especially the current single, “Trust Me.” Its whisper-to-a-shout pulse is like a prayer raised at midnight.

I saw the impression “Trust Me” can make on a congregation when I heard Senior Pastor DeAndre Patterson’s Destiny Worship Center Choir on Chicago’s west side sing it a couple of months ago. It sent congregants to tears, standing, lifting arms, wholly entranced. Unlike Smallwood’s magnum opus, “Total Praise,” which seizes the soul in a final crashing crescendo of emotion, “Trust Me” gently and silently enters the bloodstream, warming the heart from the first few notes.

In addition to “Trust Me,” other songs on the album that contain the quintessential Smallwood graceful touch with a gospel ballad include the hymnic “God of Promise,” “Sow in Tears” and “Is There Any Way,” the latter from Bishop Walter Hawkins’ Love Alive series. “Be Faithful” features lovely ensemble work from Vision, Smallwood’s longtime vocal group.

Excellent soloists can be heard throughout Promise, among them Lalah Hathaway, daughter of the late Donnie Hathaway, who contributes lovingly to Smallwood’s reflection on today’s troubles, “Praying for Peace.” Smallwood said this song was inspired in part by the fact that “racism has reared its ugly head in a way that I haven’t seen since I was a little boy. I wanted to write something that everyone could identify with globally, which is that we need peace.”

Steven Ford produces the album masterfully. Promises finds Richard Smallwood with Vision pulling out all the stops and demonstrating that not only is the composer’s gift intact, but it may be stronger than ever.

Five of Five Stars

Picks: “Trust Me,” “Is There Any Way?”