TBGB Talks with Pastor Donnie McClurkin About New CD Release

TBGB had a chance to speak with Pastor Donnie McClurkin, whose new project, We All Are One (Live in Detroit), is scheduled for release March 31, 2009.

The first single, “Wait on the Lord,” was TBGB’s March 9 Pick of the Week.

TBGB: Let’s talk about your new album for Verity Records, We All Are One (Live in Detroit). Given your earlier ministry at Detroit’s Perfecting Church, this live album must have felt like a homecoming for you.

DM: It really was like coming home. Straight Gate Church, the host church for the recording, was filled to capacity. People were there who I have known throughout the years, especially from Perfecting Church and Straight Gate.

TBGB: The first single, “Wait on the Lord,” features Karen Clark-Sheard. Have you duetted with Karen before?

DM: Never on a project. I’ve sung with Karen before; whenever you go to a concert, you know, you jump on the stage and sing with somebody. But this is the first recording we did together, because Karen has a voice like nobody else, she can kill you – and there’s my little frog voice with hers! But she’s the most fantastic person. The way that she added to the song was phenomenal.

TBGB: I understand that you duet with other gospel artists on your new CD.

DM: Mary Mary, CeCe Winans, Yolanda Adams, and one of my background vocalists, Duwane Starling. Duwane has a voice better than any male vocalist I’ve heard in the gospel field. I was especially glad to have a chance to showcase him.

TBGB: Do other members of the McClurkin Family perform on the CD?

DM: Yes, the McClurkins are there, including my younger sister Andrea Mellini. Her daughter Brittany Mellini is sixteen and she is part of the project, too.

TBGB: Is there a singer out there – gospel or pop – who you’d like to sing or perform with?

DM: James Taylor and Barbra Streisand. To me, they are the quintessential singers. Barbra, Barbra, if you are out there reading this…! Also Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin.

TBGB: When listeners hear your music on the new CD, what do you want them to come away with in terms of a message, or a call to action?

DM: I want them to come away with two things – first, knowing how great God is. Every one of the songs is about how great He is, and about God showing us who He is.

Secondly, it’s about unity, how we all need God and we all need each other. We’re divided on the basis of race, but we are the same exact person. If you pull back the pigment of the skin, the pigment of the hair, it’s the same exact person, the same organs and blood vessels. I want people to walk away knowing that regardless of how we live or what we do, we are inextricably linked, and we have to stop denying that.

TBGB: The Black Gospel Blog and its readers were saddened to learn of the passing of your sister, Olivia. How is the family doing right now?

DM: We are coping. We haven’t had a death in the family since 1968, when our two year-old brother died. Olivia was in her late forties, early fifties. She was part of the fabric of the family and now it has been torn away. We have become closer with each other now. We fill in the gap – calling, texting. It’s a hard adjustment. I’m used to singing with Olivia on the microphone, and now she’s not there.

TBGB: Of all the songs you have written and sung, what song means the most to you and why?

DM: It’s like having a lot of children and asking what child you love best. There are different songs with different purposes, and each has a different meaning. I couldn’t say that there’s just one.

I do love the hymns, though, like “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “Rescue the Perishing.” I’m pastor of a church in New York and we sing the hymns. We also sing the songs of others. We’re stuck on Hezekiah Walker and Marvin Sapp right now.

TBGB: What gospel artist has had the biggest influence on your own work?

DM: Andrae Crouch, and Walter and Edwin Hawkins, because I’m old school!

TBGB: Growing up, would you ever have believed you’d be where you are at today?

DM: Never in a quadrillion years could I have believed that I’m doing what I’m doing! It’s still kind of surreal. I’ve sung for Nelson Mandela. Shook hands with royalty. Gone over to Oprah’s house, stuff like that. I became great friends with Coretta Scott King before she passed. Coretta would tell me stories about Dr. King and show me manuscripts that he wrote.

But then you have to come back to your reality and the purpose of God’s calling. He didn’t call you to wallow in all of it but to serve Him.