The Rance Allen Group: An All-Star Tribute July 16

For more than four decades, the Rance Allen Group has inspired and energized people from all walks of life with its spirited, R&B-infused gospel music.

Rance Allen chatted with TBGB recently about his start in gospel music and the group’s upcoming live recording July 16 in his hometown of Detroit.

Allen was raised in the Church of God in Christ and recognizes the influence it has had on the direction of his music. “I can remember singing on the special state programs that the church would have in Detroit,” he said. “I actually remember having to stand up on the table tops in order to be seen by the crowd! It is a church that always allowed your gift to flourish, no matter how different you were. I was able to express and even hone my gifts while yet being in the church.”

He credits as early influences the well-known and not so well-known musicians of COGIC, “the people who were around me at the time, such as Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. And Brother Harris, Brother Foster, Brother Lewis, all of these guys played guitar, and they never reached a place of fame, but they were very influential to me.”

Allen appeared on record as early as the late 1960s, when he was invited to play guitar for the Original Church of God in Christ Radio Choir, directed by Michael Walker. Tessie Hill, the choir’s incomparable lead singer, had heard Allen play the guitar at a tent meeting and invited him to participate on the group’s live recording. “I don’t know how to describe how I felt,” Allen said, “but that was a super opportunity for me.”

The Rance Allen Singers’ first single was in 1970, on the Reflect label. “Larry, our manager at the time, was trying to take us to a noticeable place,” Allen recalled. “We recorded a single that I think had also been recorded by the Blackwood Brothers, a white gospel group, called ‘The First Day in Heaven.’ Larry also got us on a gospel show in Detroit, where we actually won first place.”

One of the show’s judges, Dave Clark, informed Toby Jackson about the prize-winning group he had just seen. Jackson was a fresh-faced, up and coming manager just out of college. They met and Jackson became their new manager. “We have been with Toby for all of these years.”

Although Andrae Crouch and the Hawkins Family are the ones most often credited with revolutionizing gospel music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Rance Allen Group also played an important role in gospel’s transition to a more contemporary sound.

“I would step outside of my modesty for a second and say that we did,” responded Allen. He added, “But Andrae Crouch was already out there, and Edwin Hawkins had the big hit, ‘Oh Happy Day.’ [‘Oh Happy Day’] was very inspiring and motivational to me. It made me want to hear my voice and my brothers’ voices on record. The style of our music leaned a little more toward the R&B style. I believe that it has truly had an effect on contemporizing gospel music.”

Today, a new generation of fans are grooving to the Rance Allen Group. “They are even excited over the music that we did decades ago,” Allen noted with wonder. “I never dreamed that I would experience this, but I am actually having fans of ours come to me now and say that they were introduced to our music by their moms and their grandmoms! And I say, ‘Oh my, how long have I been out here!’”

More than forty years. The Rance Allen Group is celebrating this milestone with an all-star tribute Friday, July 16 at Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, where the host pastor is Bishop Charles Ellis.

The group will be recording its second live CD and DVD that evening. “We did our first live album [at Greater Grace Temple],” Allen explained, “and we had a great time, so we decided to do the second one there, too. While this is our second live album, it’s probably somewhere around our 20th or 21st album.”

Most importantly, the July 16 program will be “a coming together of God’s people to help us celebrate forty-plus years singing together. That’s why our record company, Tyscot, and the Rance Allen Group decided to make the concert very affordable.”

Among the guest artists likely to be in attendance will be COGIC Detroit’s own Vanessa Bell Armstrong, “one of the greatest voices in gospel today” and Paul Porter, formerly of the Christianaires, who Allen calls “an awesome singer.”

“Oh, man, I am looking for God to do some awesome things [that evening],” Allen exclaimed. “This is going to be a concert, but because I am a pastor and a preacher, even as a concert, I look for God to save, deliver and set free some people that night.”

Allen hopes that the CD and DVD of the Friday night program will be released by mid- to late October of this year.

“We have planned to do a few old songs and new songs, and I hope that the people who come are really tuned in to the Rance Allen Group. I feel like we attract a different kind of crowd, people who are really tuned into what we do. If I can get that place packed with those kinds of people, then it is going to be a night that none of us will ever forget. The people are going to be bountifully blessed.”

For more information on the July 16 program, call the number on the poster (right – click for better viewing) or go to www.tyscot.com.

NOTE: The audio version of this interview, complete with Rance Allen classic recordings, will be broadcast 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. Central Time on the Saturday, July 10 episode of “Gospel Memories” 88.7 WLUW Chicago. Not in Chicago? Go to www.gospelmemories.com for information on how to hear the show’s live streaming audio.

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.