DALLAS (August 5, 2014) - Grammy Award® Nominee Tamela Mann and Gospel Icon Kirk Franklin have a lot to celebrate. The "Take Me To The King" digital single, written and produced by Franklin and recorded and performed by Tamela, has been RIAA Certified Gold, having sold more than 500,000 digital [...]
Mark Yandris A Sound for God’s House Released June 16, 2014 Available at Amazon, iTunes, etc. By Bob Marovich Mark Yandris is a brother from another mother. Like me, he has Slavic roots and family ties to the Calumet Region south of Chicago. Whereas our family remained in Da Region, [...]
“I Gotta Do Better” Jon Plair www.jonplair.com With “I Gotta Do Better,” singer-songwriter, producer, musician, and COGIC PK Jonathan Plair admonishes those “slacking in their praise” to do better. Do better, he exhorts, and you will change your life. The song is conventional in melody and arrangement, but Plair and his [...]
Phyllis Brown is on the far left. By Bob Marovich The Journal of Gospel Music learned today from Chicago Area Gospel Announcers Guild President Yvonne Wesley-Seabrooks that Phyllis Brown of Chicago's beloved Brown Sisters has passed away. According to the Brown Sisters website, Phyllis was the group's bookkeeper. It [...]
Nancey Jackson Johnson The Heart of Nancey Jackson Johnson Camdon Music 2014 www.CamdonMusic.com By Bob Marovich I have enjoyed listening to Nancey Jackson Johnson solo on several projects over the past few years, beginning with “Lead Me to the Rock,” from Rev. Stef & Jubilation’s 2006 The Launch Out Project. Nancey's [...]
Henry "Hanq" Neal By Bob Marovich In 2012, the Wheeler Avenue Mass Choir recorded a CD in honor of the Houston, Texas church's fiftieth anniversary. The full-length album, Oh To Be Kept by Jesus, brought together the church's music department and two longtime collaborators, Wheeler Avenue music minister [...]
“I Believe”Dr. Marcus Cosby & the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Mass ChoirFrom the 2012 CD Oh to Be Kept By Jesus (Anniversary Edition)Available on Amazon.com“I Believe” is a robust, stadium-sized praise anthem and assertion of personal belief from the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Mass Choir of Houston, Texas. The orchestral [...]
Andrea McClurkin-MelliniHigherCamdon Music (June 17, 2014)www.camdonmusic.comBy Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel BlogSister of gospel star Pastor Donnie McClurkin, singer-songwriter Andrea McClurkin-Mellini is no newcomer to gospel music. She was a member of the McClurkin Singers and a charter member of the New York Restoration Mass Choir. She penned the [...]
Eric ThomasKeep On Climbin’Self-released (2009)www.cdbaby.com/cd/ethomasmusicBy Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel BlogKeep On Climbin’ by Chicago singer Eric Thomas could easily be subtitled "With the Sons of Chicago Gospel Legends."That’s because Richard Gibbs (Inez Andrews’s son), Bryant Jones (Rev. Billy Jones and Jeanette Robinson Jones’s son), and Joey Woolfalk (Johnny [...]
Minister L. JonesHallelujah to His NameSharper Brothers (released January 16, 2014)www.sharprecordsusa.comBy Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel BlogIf I were a betting man (I’m not), I’d wager that the early work of Commissioned and the Winans had more than a smidgen of influence on the singing style of Minister Lorenza [...]
