Gospel Music

“Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand”Eric CarringtonDivine Line Records (2012)www.ericcarrington.comEric Carrington of Houston, Texas, goes Deep South on “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand,” a quartet-fired song about making it through the “valley experiences” of life.Carrington; his father, Pastor James Carrington of Willing Workers Baptist Church; and the Mighty Clouds of Joy’s [...]

The Rance Allen GroupAmazing GraceTyscot Records (2012)www.tyscot.comBy Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.Few longstanding gospel groups have managed to remain as classic and contemporary as the Rance Allen Group.  Organized in the late 1960s in Monroe, Michigan, the trio of brothers continues to please audiences with music that is rooted [...]

“This Christmas”Mario BrownEmerging gospel artist Mario Brown from Milwaukee eschews the brassy instrumentation that normally endows Donny Hathaway’s Christmas classic and performs it a cappella, accompanied by polyrhythmic doo wop beats performed entirely by mouth, a la Take 6 and Bobby McFerrin.Brown said, “2012 has been a great year.  My album, Glory-The [...]

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.Humbling.That was how Michele Clark Jenkins described how she and co-editor Stephanie Perry Moore felt as they began assembling Sisters In Faith Bible, a new resource for African American women.“Here are human hands getting real close to the word of God,” Jenkins told [...]

ManifestA Manifest ChristmasManifest Music (2012)www.manifestsings.comBy Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.A Manifest Christmas could be subtitled A Jazzy Christmas.This EP by Brooklyn's male ensemble Manifest features smooth inspirational jazz interpretations of holiday classics such as “Silent Night” and an instrumental version of “Away In a Manger,” but also includes [...]

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.On Saturday, December 22, TV One will celebrate the holiday season with the world television premiere of the Tyscot Film A Beautiful Soul, featuring Deitrick Haddon, at 8:00 p.m. ET.The film, directed by Jeffrey W. Byrd, stars Haddon as Andre "Dre" Stephens, a narcissistic R&B artist who [...]

“Story of My Life”LoveSongThere’s “trouble underneath the surface,” sings LoveSong on “Story of My Life.”  Like Leoncavallo’s pagliaccio or Smokey Robinson’s crying clown, one sometimes laughs on the outside to hide the pain on the inside.  According to “Story of My Life,” when you shift the authorship of your life from [...]