Worth It All – The Charlotte Chapter of GMWA (2008)

The Charlotte Chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America
Worth It All
Self-Released 2008
www.cdbaby.com/cd/tccotgmwa

Not long after James Cleveland and a cartel of religious and music industry leaders established the Gospel Music Workshop of America in 1967, and staged its first convention in Detroit, the performances of the mass choir and other ensembles at these annual gatherings were recorded on double-album sets.

Directly, the annual GMWA recordings made it possible for thousands more choirs and singers around the world to learn the new gospel songs introduced at the convention. Indirectly, the discs promoted Prof. Thomas A. Dorsey’s concept of the gospel choir as a democratic group of music amateurs – Everymen and Everywomen – who loved spirited singing in the church and wanted to sound their very best doing it.

The early GMWA albums – released by Savoy Records, which was to choirs what Peacock Records was to quartets – paved the way for specially-talented chapter choirs to release their own projects. The sum total of GMWA-based recorded output helped make the 1970s and 1980s a Golden Age of the mass choir.

Chapter choirs are still recording, as demonstrated by Worth It All from the 26 year-old Charlotte (NC) Chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America.

First impressions are everything, and on the first track, “Bless Your Name,” the impression is of a tidal wave of sound from the Charlotte ensemble. The group blends traditional gospel choir harmonies with contemporary arrangements and instrumentation, and reprise key phrases so often and so thoroughly that you will be singing along well before you realize it.

The finest moments on Worth It All include the churchy “I’m Free” that sounds like a Mississippi Mass Choir piece. “There is a Fountain” (aka “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood”) is given an appropriately formal, serious reading. The title track is another song that will get the blood running warm in your veins.

Among hard-core collectors and the general gospel music fan base, gospel choirs have somehow fallen behind gospel soloists, small ensembles and quartets in terms of popularity. But I still contend that some of the most bone-chilling and heart-palpitating sounds come from the gospel choir.

Two and a Half of Four Stars