Resting On His Promise — Youthful Praise featuring JJ Hairston

Youthful Praise featuring JJ Hairston
Resting On His Promise
Evidence Gospel/Light Records 2009 (release date: September 1, 2009)
www.lightrecords.com

When at the beginning of the decade JJ Hairston assumed leadership of Youthful Praise at Turner’s Faith Temple COGIC in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he may not have realized it at the time, but he was walking in the footsteps of his pastor, Bishop J.C. White.

In 1967, Bishop White introduced the thunderous Institutional COGIC Radio Choir to the world with the smash “Stretch Out (When Trouble Comes).” The choir performed its breakout hit as guest artists on Shirley Caesar’s first solo LP, I’ll Go, and many times afterward on its own.

Hairston’s group, Youthful Praise (YP), delivers the same high-energy, high-volume sound as Bishop White’s Institutional COGIC Choir, but updated for the 21st Century. YP is a supercharged praise and worship choir whose crisp, melodic, top-decibel singing is outdone only by the full-throated, auditorium-filling voices of the soloists. With musicians weaving gentle strings, symphonic rock and power gospel into the mix, listening to Resting On His Promise is like listening to the gospel equivalent of an arena rock concert.

Clocking in at more than seven minutes each, the album’s two opening praise songs – “You Reign” and “Hear Me Lord” – set the stage for the aural experience. Many of the songs on the album run six-plus minutes and have similarly larger-than-life arrangements.

A few top gospel artists guest star on the project, including Pastor Shirley Caesar who this time is the guest instead of the host. She fronts YP on the traditional-sounding “High Praise.” Myron Butler solos on “Great Expectation.”

But it’s that gospel firecracker Dorinda Clark-Cole leading the choir on “Still Mighty, Still Strong” that gives the album its finest moment. It demonstrates that traditional gospel soloists and YP’s tidal wave of P&W sound go together like peanut butter and jelly, and are just as tasty. JJ Hairston and YP should consider recording an album on which a parade of stone singers such as Dorinda Clark-Cole and Shirley Caesar lead the choir. It will be nothing short of spectacular.

While most of the lyrics are praise and worship-oriented, songs such as the hit “Resting On His Promise” address the current theme of encouragement during tough times through faith and prayer. “Powerful God” is another song focused on struggle and deliverance, ending with an emotional vamp.

The album concludes with “You Can Make It,” a quick-tempo, old school Pentecostal rouser that reminds the listener that JJ and YP are saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Four of Five Stars