By Bob Marovich From time to time, such as on major holidays or when the young people’s choir was singing, young Gloria Fowles and her family accompanied their grandmother to Abyssinian Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. At Abyssinian, they would listen to sermons from its pastor, the Reverend Raphus [...]
By Bob Marovich The sacred-secular divide in music is a uniquely modern conception, and it misses the point. In West Africa, where most enslaved Africans came from, all music was sacred and all music was secular. There was no distinction…until the music came to America during the African Diaspora and [...]
By Bob Marovich Last December, gospel artist Gene Moore was on top of the world. He had recently gotten married to the love of his life, and things were looking up. He had released his debut album, The Future, on Motown Gospel in 2016. Then the trials started. “First, my [...]
By Bob Marovich If the leaders of Hammond, Louisiana, ever decided to change the town’s name, one contender in the running would be Showers, Louisiana. This Tangipahoa Parish town with a census of about 21,000 residents boasts no less than seven businesses owned and operated by members of the Showers [...]
By Bob Marovich The collaboration between Stellar Award-winning Arkansas gospel quartet Tim Rogers and the Fellas and the Grammy-nominated R&B sensation Calvin Richardson that resulted in the Fellas’ latest single, “Hold Out,” began in the unlikeliest of places: an airport. Rogers and Richardson ran into one another while moving through [...]
By Bob Marovich Twenty-seven-year-old Sophia Martinez Gokey was a big fan of American Idol. She taped the program so her husband Danny Gokey, also an enthusiast of the singing competition, could watch it after he returned home from work. Sophia eventually encouraged Danny to audition for the show and, in [...]
By Bob Marovich While her friends were listening to the singing stars of the day, a young Tracy Williamson was just as interested in who was producing the music, and how they did it, as who sung it. She charted the careers of legendary producers like Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy, [...]
By Bob Marovich Few gospel artists can claim to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Only one, to my knowledge, can also boast that a major prop from his former band is now on display in the Smithsonian. Calvin Simon can lay claim to both. As a [...]
By Bob Marovich After the release of his Billboard-charting School of Roses in 2014, Christon Gray had no idea what was coming. “I didn’t know that I would be going through a separation and then a divorce,” Gray told the Journal of Gospel Music. “I didn’t know that I would [...]
By Bob Marovich Written and produced by her son, Curtis Turrentine Jr., Evelyn Turrentine-Agee's “God Gave His Best” will be released Friday, October 5. It's the latest single from the Queen of Quartet, whose gospel music career spans several decades. Evelyn told the Journal of Gospel Music that her singing ministry began at the tender age of [...]
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