Jessy Dixon to Celebrate Chicago Songwriters, Publishers on TV Show

From Sounds of Inspiration
by Effie Rolfe
Published in the Chicago Defender
April 28, 2006

Jessy Dixon presents Liberty Baptist and Friends in a Live TV Taping on Sunday at 3:00 p.m.

The legendary singer Dixon started his career singing and playing with Rev Milton Brunson and the Thompson Community Singers. Reflecting on the genesis of the television production, Dixon stated “the concept was birthed as I traveled around the world. So many people sang songs and people did not who wrote the songs—they thought they were public domain or unknown artists. This (television production) is really to bring awareness about black gospel and especially Chicago songwriters and publishers such as Thomas Dorsey, Sam Cooke, Kenneth Morris, Rev James Cleveland, Darius Brooks, Percy Bady, Albertina Walker, Inez Andrews as well as myself who wrote over 200 songs.

“When I started searching the archives, I discovered 65 songwriters, some were unknown song writers also publishers like Kenneth Morris, who was a millionaire.” Dixon proudly stated that, “At one time Chicago was the home of 10 publishing companies. And so we are going to be honoring these people and we are going to be singing the songs they wrote.”

According to Dixon, one of Rev. Clay Evans’ songs entitled, “Stand by Me” is a hit and is being performed in Southern Gospel today.

Dixon who has written over 200 songs, wrote “I Love to Praise Him” for the Thompson Community Singers in 1972 and Donnie McClurkin recorded it on his CD. “You Bring The Sun Out” was written for Randy Crawford, and was sampled by Kirk Franklin for his latest project entitled Hero.

The legendary singer admonishes all to “Protect your songs, protect the gifts that God has given you by doing all of the legal work there is more to writing a song than just writing a song—there is a legal procedure—this is why Little Richard lost all of his publishing rights and songs to Pat Boone. Michael Jackson bought them back and gave them to Little Richard. Hopefully, more black publishing companies will be coming back to Chicago like it use—that’s how Mahalia Jackson and the Caravans always had new music to sing.”

The program starts at 3:00 p.m. Sunday at Liberty Baptist, 4849 S. King Drive. Doors open at 2:00 p.m. The program is scheduled to air on BET, VH1 and several other cable networks. The taping will be similar to Southern Gospel’s, Bill Gaither’s Homecoming, which often features Dixon.