Lisa McClendon “Puts the World on Pause” to Speak with TBGB

While promoting her fourth and latest CD, Reality (BluSoul Entertainment), gospel artist Lisa McClendon spent time with TBGB reminiscing about her start in the music business and what makes her style truly distinctive.

McClendon grew up in Palatka, Florida, a small town about 45 minutes south of Jacksonville. Her family was very musical. “The thing to do in those days was to create a family choir,” she said. So she sang in her family group but also joined the various choirs at her home church, the Temple of God, where her father was assistant pastor (he now pastors a church in Tampa).

When McClendon was fifteen, she entered a gospel star talent search, performing “My Strongest Weakness” by the Christianaires. She did not win the competition, but took the first round and was a runner-up. “That is when I decided I wanted to sing professionally,” she remembered. It was as a young teen that she also began writing songs, a craft she continues to this day.

“My surroundings were always gospel, but there was a huge jazz influence on my singing,” McClendon noted. Her early influences ranged from Ella Fitzgerald – “her voice is timeless” – to the top gospel artists of the late 1980s/early 1990s, “when the music started changing.” McClendon especially recalled the day she discovered the music of Dawkins & Dawkins: “I didn’t think gospel could sound like that!” Meanwhile, she soaked up the sounds of the Winans, Commissioned with Fred Hammond, Yolanda Adams, Daryl Coley and the Clark Sisters.

McClendon’s first professional gig was at P. Diddy’s club in New York, where her fusion of gospel and jazz was well received. She parlayed this momentum into a first album, My Diary, Your Life, released in 2002. The inspirational project steeped in neo-soul led to more invitations to perform at clubs, “where I was able to reach people who would never have stepped foot in a church.”

McClendon refers to her distinctive style as “inspirational soul, which is embraced now but was really different when I recorded my first album.” She was not alone. Artists such as PJ Morton were also experimenting with jazz, soul and gospel fusion in the mid-2000s.

Despite McClendon’s popularity on the club circuit, her second album, Soul Music (2003), was more focused, musically and promotionally, on the church community. “[Soul Music] allowed me to get into doors that I couldn’t get into before.” In 2006, McClendon followed up with Live from the House of Blues, recorded in New Orleans. She also made guest appearances on other artist’s projects, notably on albums by popular Christian hip hop artists Da T.R.U.T.H. and Pettidee.

She describes her fourth album, Reality, as having a “more mature sound in terms of the writing and the production. It’s really a fusion of my first, second and third albums. Those who liked my first album really like Reality.”

A track that exemplifies the album’s overarching theme of personal growth is “Now I Get It.” It tackles the mistakes the singer made early in her professional career by not taking seriously the sage advice offered to her by other, more experienced artists. She ended up learning about the music business the hard way. “Ten years ago, I was a singer-songwriter,” commented McClendon. “Now I am also a businesswoman.” Her advice to emerging artists is to “know the business.”

McClendon said the track from Reality getting much of the attention these days is “Pause” (watch the video below). “[‘Pause’] was written one day when my children were frustrating me with their arguing. I happened to be on the telephone with my agent and said that I wished I had a remote control so I could hit the ‘Pause’ button and they would stop.” Her agent said that her comment sounded like the makings of a song. She wrote it, and it hit a universal nerve. “We get more responses for this song than just about anything we’ve ever done!”

When she is not performing, McClendon enjoys listening to emerging gospel artists such as Travis Greene and current stars such as Yolanda Adams and Hillsong United. She would like to do a jazz album that ministers specifically to couples, and is at work on her first Christmas album, scheduled for release this fall.

Lisa McClendon’s style may be distinctive, but her themes are classic and straightforward. “What Christianity is all about is manifesting love, and we need love.”