Bob

“You Are”Hans Christian and Gospel Fellowship (Opstand Gospel Choir) featuring Fred HammondFrom the CD You Are www.hanschristianpresents.comThe gentle and poignant “You Are” is the product of a multicultural, multinational collaboration between the Hans Christian and Gospel Fellowship ensemble of Denmark and Detroiter Fred Hammond.  Lyrically, “You Are” is part P&W [...]

Deitrick HaddonR.E.D. (Restoring Everything Damaged)RCA Inspiration (release date: September 3, 2013)www.rcainspiration.comBy Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel BlogR.E.D. (Restoring Everything Damaged) is Deitrick Haddon’s most personal album to date.Present on the twelve-song project (the deluxe version has five more cuts) are the electronic dance music and playful polyrhythms for which [...]

“Happy”Judy CheeksMozan Music (released June, 2013)www.judycheeks.comTo an unrelenting funk backdrop, Judy Cheeks—daughter of quartet legend Rev. Julius Cheeks and goddaughter of Sam Cooke—sings about how happy she is that God loves her, especially given the state of the hate today.  But she doesn’t stop there.  Summoning up her inner evangelist, Cheeks [...]

“He Is Lord”Pastor Dale Jay SandersObviously Blessed Music, Inc. (2013)obviouslyblessedmusic@aol.comUsing Psalm 90 for the lyrical foundation, Pastor Dale Jay Sanders and his choir give this conventional P&W piece a peppy mid-tempo reading.  Sanders speaks and sings to the choir (literally) about the greatness of God, while they blithely sing the [...]

On Saturday, August 24, WLUW Chicago's Gospel Memories radio program paid tribute to the Fiftieth Anniversary of the March on Washington by featuring the artists that sang at the event, the songs they sang, and samples of some of the speeches.TBGB's Bob Marovich is host of Gospel Memories, "the home [...]

“A Little Help From My Friend”VadiaFrom Vadia’s Mixtape Vol. 1 (2013)https://twitter.com/vahdeeuhVadia Rhodes, aka Vadia, gives Joe Cocker’s already gospelized version of the Beatles classic an inspirational lyric to boot.  The Sacramento, California-based singer and her father, Pastor Essex Hubbard, raise the gospel temperature towards the end with a shouting duet [...]

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog“Gospel’s Leading Man” Earnest Pugh evokes a long line of gospel balladeers stretching back to the 1930s, from Robert Anderson and R.L. Knowles to Charles Beck, and possibly further, to the 1920s and Homer Quincy Smith, member of the famous Southernaires radio quartet.  [...]

C3 (Cho-zen 3)Cho-Zen By FaithReal Records www.chozen3.comBy Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel BlogThe test of any singing group is whether it sounds good unplugged.  From Lumberton, North Carolina, Kimberly Worley, Terri Pittman, and Kimberly McKoy (member Felicia McLean passed away of cancer), are female trio Cho-Zen, aka C3, and [...]

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.I say this without the benefit of any research, but it just seems as if there are more African American gospel artists nominated for GMA Dove Awards this year than ever before.  That's a good thing.That is also not surprising, given the popularity [...]

onylfans lilybrooke_81Kay MorrisUnconditional Love Jewels Records (2013)www.kaymorrismusic.comBy Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel BlogI don't know about you, but a CD from a Jamaican native living in Canada that includes a song accompanied by a Ugandan children’s choir would qualify as one of the year’s most globally diverse inspirational projects.That [...]