Earnest Pugh Is On A Winning Streak

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog

“Gospel’s Leading Man” Earnest Pugh evokes a long line of gospel balladeers stretching back to the 1930s, from Robert Anderson and R.L. Knowles to Charles Beck, and possibly further, to the 1920s and Homer Quincy Smith, member of the famous Southernaires radio quartet.  Pugh’s smooth vocals have made a way for him among today’s gospel music royalty.

TBGB spoke with Pugh about his career thus far, including his new album, The W.I.N. (Worship in Nassau) Experience, due in stores September 17.

Earnest Pugh grew up in Millington, Tennessee, a town just northeast of Memphis.  As a child, he alternated between attending an AME church, where his father was a member, and his grandmother’s church, Bishop G.E. Patterson’s flagship Church of God in Christ in Memphis.  “I got a lot of my music background from Bishop Patterson’s church,” Pugh said. 

Another early influence was community choir director O’Landa Draper.  Draper happened to hear fourteen-year-old Pugh soloing with his church choir on a radio broadcast one Sunday night and tracked him down.  Pugh said Draper encouraged him at that early age to “move my ministry beyond the four walls of the church.  But I’m looking at him like, ‘I’m just doing what my parents tell me to do, get up there and sing!”

Through Draper’s persistence, Pugh joined O’Landa Draper & the Associates, but only briefly.  “I ran to the military,” he said, “because to me, then, [music ministry] didn’t seem prestigious.  I saw my parents struggle doing church.”

During his fifteen year tenure in the armed forces, Pugh sang in nightclubs, intent on becoming an R&B artist, even though “the smoke [in the clubs] would mess up my voice!”  He learned he could run from gospel but he couldn’t hide.  One evening, a lady in the club grabbed Pugh’s arm and said, “Who are you foolin’?  This is for God!  You can’t hide from God!”  Additionally, Chaplain Robert Diggs of Fort Hood, Texas, invited Pugh to lead worship at the chapel, really an 1,100 seat auditorium  “This was an irrevocable call,” Pugh realized.  “I could not get away from church.”

In 2006, Pugh started the EPM Music Group “because even though I had accepted my calling to music ministry, I couldn’t get signed to any label.  One day, my mom said, ‘Sign yourself.’”  He did.  Joining forces with another artist, Keith Williams, Pugh started EPM Music Group, releasing his first record on his own imprint.  The album sold approximately 20,000 units in 90 days.  Album sales and a radio hit, “Wrapped Up, Tied Up, Tangled Up,” brought Pugh the national exposure he sought.

But just weeks prior to the recording of his album, Rain On Us, Pugh contracted a parasite that nearly took his life.  “At first, I thought it was food poisoning,” he said, “but I lost sixty-some pounds in the course of four weeks.  I couldn’t keep food down, and I was shedding the lining of my stomach.  The doctors said I wouldn’t make it another two weeks.  I was signing papers and everything.  I looked at the ceiling and thought, Lord, I just don’t feel like it’s over.  There are books inside of me, there is music inside of me. 

“One day, a specialist from out of the country identified the parasite and made up some medicine for me to take.  After six months of recovery, I got up and did the record.  A lot of my songs come out of that trial.  If you have no test, you have no testimony.”

Rain On Us was released in 2008 and the single and title track became his next gospel hit. 

“Rain On Us” was successful, Pugh said, because of its timely message.  “We were in an economic downturn.  People were losing their jobs.  Even though I am a spirit-filled Christian, fear gripped my heart, too.  My children were in the midst of college and career moves.  God pulled me aside and said, ‘If you will allow your faith, not your fear, to cry out and ask for the rain in the midst of this drought, I will do exceedingly and abundantly, above all that you ask.’”

Pugh’s sacred music career has been going strong ever since.  Inspired by the artistry of John P. Kee, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, and Daryl Coley, Pugh acknowledged that “Donnie McClurkin has probably been the number one artist for me to emulate, in terms of flowing into my anointing and being comfortable setting the atmosphere.”

The new album, W.I.N. (Worship In Nassau) Experience, was recorded live in the Bahamas and commemorates Pugh’s 20 years in music ministry and 15 years in the gospel music industry.  Grammy-winning Cedric Thompson produced the album.  Guest artists represent those who have been influential in Pugh’s career, notably Pastor Shirley Caesar, Bishop Rance Allen, Lejeune Thompson, and EPM Music Group artists Vincent Tharpe and Kenosis.  Pugh is especially proud to have closed the CD with an urban track, “I Believe You Most,” written and produced by Pugh, J Moss and PAJAM.

The album’s first single, “More of You” is currently impacting radio.  Pugh was inspired to write the song “during a dry season.  You can be very busy but not necessarily effective.  One day, I was coming to the end of my prayer, and I could hear my phone ringing with reminders about interviews and radio.  I felt like I had to get away from all of that and get to a place where I could hear God’s voice.  My mind was so jumbled up with thoughts and decisions and opportunities, I couldn’t hear God’s voice.  That’s why the lyric says, ‘Away from all the noise/So that you can hear my voice.’  Sometimes you just have to shut down all distractions that impede your talking with God, because He is the one who keeps you on point.”

Pugh added that W.I.N. “is a sampler platter for everyone: the young, the old, the young adult, the urban, the traditional.  Everybody can get a little off of this record and say, ‘Whoo – I’ve had a full meal!’”

To promote the album, Pugh is taking part in the Men in Worship tour and will also do a fourteen-city listening party series, mostly in cities with Radio One stations.  “I’ll sing a couple of the songs, sign CDs, meet and greet.  I want to make this the biggest album of my career.”

For more information, visit: www.earnestpugh.com.