We All Are One (Live in Detroit) – Donnie McClurkin

Donnie McClurkin
We All Are One (Live in Detroit)
Verity Records 2009
www.verityrecords.com

Unity and our essential one-ness as a human race are chief lyrical themes of We All Are One (Live in Detroit), but musically, Donnie McClurkin is all about variety, stirring a little bit of everything into the aural stew. Contemporary, hymn, traditional, praise & worship, and even a smattering of rock and RnB find their way onto McClurkin’s new project, released March 31, 2009.

A handful of the album’s twelve songs were recorded live on September 26, 2008 at Straight Gate Church in Detroit, where Bishop Andrew Merritt is Pastor. Before establishing Perfecting Faith Church in Freeport, New York, McClurkin was associate minister at Pastor Marvin Winans’ Perfecting Church in Detroit, so performing in the Motor City was a homecoming of sorts. Regardless of whether the tracks were done live or in the studio, however, the singers and musicians give it 100 percent. McClurkin sounds especially energized by the experience.

Featuring the powerful vocals of Detroiter Karen Clark Sheard, “Wait on the Lord” is the album’s first single. “When You Love” is bound to follow because of its own star power; CeCe Winans, Yolanda Adams and Mary Mary lend their voices to this wedding-ready song. From a purely gospel music standpoint, however, “The Great I Am” is the album’s high point. A church-rousing, pulse-pounding traditional choir workout, the song showcases McClurkin and his singers in full voice, shouting down the rafters.

What strikes me is how McClurkin continues to mature as a hymnist. Compositions such as “You Are My God and King” and the classically beautiful, four-square “All We Ask” sound bound for the hymnbook. “All We Ask” benefits from top-class vocal work by the electrifying Nancey Jackson-Johnson, Sherry McGhee, Andrea Mellini and the marvelous tenor Duawne Starling. “You Are My God and King” is a congregational hymn with an African-inspired rhythm. Should he continue composing in this vein, McClurkin could well become one of the century’s finest hymn writers.

Overall, We All Are One (Live in Detroit) is more self-consciously expansive than the platinum-selling 2000 release Live in London and More, with its smash hit, “We Fall Down.” Still, when you get down to it, the new album is quintessentially Donnie McClurkin.

Three and a Half of Four Stars