JGM Pick of the Week – January 23, 2023
No, it’s not a cover of the Duncanaires of Chicago’s jazzy 1963 single, but a no-holds-barred quartet pewburner by DiVine of Annapolis.
No, it’s not a cover of the Duncanaires of Chicago’s jazzy 1963 single, but a no-holds-barred quartet pewburner by DiVine of Annapolis.
Chicago-based gospel music collector Marc Davis collaborated with Sadar Bahar and recording engineer Tone B. Nimble to inject a disco beat into the Fountain of Life Joy Choir’s “I’m So Happy.”
With the exception of Detroit, no city does gospel choir like Chicago. “He’ll Make It Alright” by Julius Pearson and the Gospel Chorale of Chicago is a good example. It has that hard-hitting, roof-raising singing evocative of early Ricky Dillard and late twentieth-century Chicago church choirs. Its palpable enthusiasm will just as easily light up a church as the airwaves.
Although on her latest selection, “Don’t Leave Me Jesus,” Lady Voncile Belcher pleads with Jesus to not leave her “in this barren land,” she knows he won’t. Quoting from “No Ways Tired,” she and her background vocalists sing: “he didn’t bring me this far to leave me.”
“All Things Are Working” Joe Pace feat. Callie Day Pace Music Group (release date: November 18, 2022)
To give their “Don’t Forget You’re a Child of God” an authentic touch, the gospel band Out of the Whirlwind recruited the Workstudy Performing Arts Choir, a children’s choir out of Matteson, Illinois, to sing with them. And the children deliver.
“Favor” Danielle Stephens DRS Music (release date: July 1, 2022)
A lovely solo ballad written by singer-guitarist Mari Ramsey and his foster father, “I Don’t Know” is a prayer raised in that defining moment when everything seems lost and all that's left is to put faith in God and let him lead.
“Great God” Demetrius West and Jesus Promoters feat. Lisa Carter-Cork From the Blacksmoke Music Worldwide album Old Fellowship Hour (release date: November 4, 2022)
“This Child of Bethlehem” Amanda Joy Powell Independent (release date: December 1, 2020)