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Armstead Ford & Calvin Ivy – Anthems of Hope
Armstead Ford's Anthems of Hope, featuring fellow singer Calvin Ivy, showcases Ford's fealty to traditional gospel.
SEMAJE – ’92
The brief nine-track album is high energy and earnest, sunshiny optimism, with effusive singing about praise, hope, and encouragement.
JGM Pick of the Week: August 25, 2025
BET Sunday Best Season 9 champion Melvin Crispell III drops serious techno on his gush of praises to Jesus for having made it through the troubles and strife.
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Melba Moore's new memoir, "This Is It," is available now through Amazon Books.
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Recent Posts
Armstead Ford & Calvin Ivy – Anthems of Hope
Armstead Ford's Anthems of Hope, featuring fellow singer Calvin Ivy, showcases Ford's fealty to traditional gospel.
SEMAJE – ’92
The brief nine-track album is high energy and earnest, sunshiny optimism, with effusive singing about praise, hope, and encouragement.
JGM Pick of the Week: August 25, 2025
BET Sunday Best Season 9 champion Melvin Crispell III drops serious techno on his gush of praises to Jesus for having made it through the troubles and strife.
Sponsored Post:
“There Wouldn’t Be a Me” Shonda English Gospel Diva Music (release date: January 23, 2024)
Clocking in at less than ten minutes, OMARI is an affectionate love letter, wrapped in swaddling Christian pop and R&B, from a first-time father to his son.
Congratulations to the 2025 GRAMMY Awards nominees in the Gospel and Contemporary Christian Music Group
“Never Turn Back” Gregory G. Pearson feat. Angelena Starks Inner Court Music (release date: September 15, 2023)
JamesTown Music, founded by GRAMMY-nominated and multiple Stellar Award winner, JJ Hairston, has announced the signing of a deal finalizing a partnership between Motown Gospel and JamesTown Music.
5-0 Studios London and the “Queen of Gospel,” Pastor Shirley Caesar will tell her story in a new film series entitled BLESSINGS - My Life - His Glory.
LATEST 5 STAR REVIEWS
Charles Jenkins & Fellowship Chicago The Best of Both Worlds EMI Gospel/Inspired People (2012) www.emigospel.com By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog. It could not have been easy for Charles Jenkins to succeed the iconic Rev. Dr. Clay Evans as Pastor of Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago. Evans, a Civil Rights leader and [...]
Reverend John Wilkins You Can’t Hurry God Fat Possum Records/Big Legal Mess (2010) http://www.biglegalmessrecords.com/ Talk about old school. On You Can’t Hurry God, Reverend John Wilkins takes us way back into the North Mississippi Hill Country for sacred music, guitar evangelist style. The result is an album with the simple authenticity of an Alan Lomax [...]
Frontlynaz Game Over Frontlynaz, Inc. 2008 www.frontlynaz.com Say what you will about Holy Hip Hop, but the Stellar-nominated HHH group Frontlynaz spits rhymes and drops beats with the power and urgency of a brakeless freight train. Their Game Over grabbed my attention and held it with clenched fists from beginning to end. Captivating and compelling, [...]
LATEST PICK OF THE WEEK – SINGLES
“God Bless the World" Siobhan Maher Kennedy (release date: May 6, 2022) By Robert M. Marovich While not a gospel or religious song per se, “God Bless the World" is nonetheless a prayer for unity in a world where people have separated from each another on account of race and ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, sex [...]
“It’s On the Way” Gia Wyre 141st Lane Music (release date: May 6, 2022) By Robert M. Marovich Peace, joy, and happiness is coming, sings Miami songstress Gia Wyre at a breathless pace, on “It’s On the Way.” Near the vamp, Wyre lets loose with some good old quartet-style moaning and shouting as the musical [...]
“Never Stop Trusting God” Lemmie Battles DAF Entertainment Group (release date: June 17, 2022) By Robert M. Marovich Every song Lemmie Battles sings sounds like her personal testimony. Probably because every song is. Same with “Never Stop Trusting God.” Written by Percy Gray and produced by Jeral Gray Sr., the single features that Chicago-style pew-burning [...]
“With Joy We Draw Water” The Bishop’s Choir feat. Kyle Sanders Enon Music Group (release date: April 15, 2022) www.enonmusic.com By Robert M. Marovich The Bishop’s Choir gives the original John Howard Caravan classic, “With Joy We Draw Water,” a full-throated rendering, complete with impassioned lead by Min. Kyle Sanders. From the Sim Wilson Jr. [...]
“Jesus Knows” Lisa Knowles-Smith and the Brown Singers EvoWorld Music (release date: May 13, 2022) By Robert M. Marovich For their new single, Lisa Knowles-Smith and the Brown Singers draw on key lyrics from the folk spiritual, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” But that’s where the comparison ends. Whereas the spiritual is slow and [...]
By Robert Marovich
In A City Called Heaven, gospel announcer and music historian Robert Marovich shines a light on the humble origins of a majestic genre and its indispensable bond to the city where it found its voice: Chicago.
By Robert Marovich
In A City Called Heaven, gospel announcer and music historian Robert Marovich shines a light on the humble origins of a majestic genre and its indispensable bond to the city where it found its voice: Chicago.
Dr. Feranda Williamson By Bob Marovich Its fifteenth album, Live XV, is still impacting gospel radio, but the Chicago Mass Choir is preparing for the future by re-signing with its former label home, New Haven Records. “We were with New Haven before,” Chicago Mass Choir President and CEO Dr. Feranda Williamson told the [...]
By Bob Marovich In some ways, it was like attending a gospel music hall of fame event wrapped inside a live recording session. The Clark Sisters were seated in the front row. Richard Smallwood sat behind them. Rows of gospel announcers, gospel music producers, and popular singers were to their left and right. Chicago’s House [...]
By Bob Marovich for the Journal of Gospel Music If Richard Smallwood had his druthers, the autobiography he is writing would have been released simultaneously with his new album, the two-CD Anthology Live. The album, recorded with his group, Vision, is essentially the "musical soundtrack" to his autobiography. But the music came first, and Anthology [...]
JGM is saddened to learn of the passing of Spencer Bouvier Taylor III, drummer and singer with the legendary quartet the Highway QCs.
Lloyd Cannady Jr., age 80, slipped away peacefully on Monday, May 1, 2023.
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