Prayer List

RIP: Clarence Fountain, Last Original Member of the Blind Boys of Alabama

2018-06-04T02:06:30-05:00June 4th, 2018|

By Bob Marovich Clarence Fountain, the longtime lead singer and an original member of the Grammy Award-winning Blind Boys of Alabama, passed away this morning. He was the last of the original members of the group that was organized in 1944. Six sightless pupils, including Clarence Fountain, left the Alabama [...]

Pastor C. James Starks, Patriarch of the Starks Family, Makes His Transition

2018-05-17T02:26:12-05:00May 17th, 2018|

Photo Credit: Starks Family (Detroit, MI)  Members of the Gospel Music community at large offer prayers and condolences to the Starks family in the untimely passing of the family patriarch, Elder C. James Starks, on Monday, April 14. A loving and devoted husband, father, spiritual leader, and "man [...]

RIP: Dr. James C. McLean of the Bethlehem Gospel Singers

2018-02-07T03:17:58-06:00February 7th, 2018|

Angelo Breeden and Archie Swindell Jr. informed JGM that Dr. James C. McLean, a founding member of the Bethlehem Gospel Singers, passed away in a Charlotte, North Carolina, hospital yesterday evening, February 5, 2018. Hailing from Laurinburg, North Carolina, the Bethlehem Gospel Singers were organized in the late 1950s by Dr. [...]

RIP: Edwin Hawkins, Architect of Contemporary Gospel

2018-01-15T22:26:02-06:00January 15th, 2018|

Photo Credit: Hawkins Gospel Conference website By Bob Marovich The Journal of Gospel Music has learned that Edwin Hawkins, whose arrangement of the nineteenth-century hymn "Oh Happy Day" became a crossover success and signaled the emergence of contemporary gospel music, passed away today (Jan. 15) in Pleasanton, California. Here [...]

Bill Hearn, Christian/Gospel Music Executive, Dead at 58

2017-12-12T23:37:30-06:00December 12th, 2017|

NASHVILLE, December 11, 2017—William Ray “Bill” Hearn, a highly admired and revered music industry executive who led the Nashville-based market-leading Capitol Christian Music Group (CCMG) as its Chairman & CEO, passed away yesterday at age 58 in Nashville, Tennessee. Hearn successfully combined an unwavering vision, a commitment to excellence, and [...]

RIP: Della Reese, Sang with Mahalia Jackson, the Meditation Singers

2017-11-21T02:25:07-06:00November 21st, 2017|

Della Reese (far right) with Brown's Inspirational Singers, 1950. From left, Kenneth Woods Jr., Milan Brown, Beatrice Brown, Raymond Rasberry. Photo Credit: Kenneth Woods Jr. By Bob Marovich Although better known as a television actor and pop singer, Della Reese made her early foray into professional music as [...]

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