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The Spin Awards Launches Tracy Morgan Excellence in Broadcasting Award
The Spin Awards has announced the creation of the Tracy Morgan Excellence in Broadcasting Award.
40th Annual Stellar Gospel Award Winners Revealed
Central City Productions' “40th Stellar Gospel Music Awards” were held on August 16th, 2025 at the historic Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, TN.
RIP: Chuck Girard (Love Song)
Chuck Girard of the pioneering Christian rock band Love Song passed away Monday, August 11, 2025, at the age of 81. Born in Los Angeles, California, on August 27, 1943, Girard was a member of the vocal group the Castells (Era), whose "Sacred" and "So This Is Love" made the [...]
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Recent Posts
The Spin Awards Launches Tracy Morgan Excellence in Broadcasting Award
The Spin Awards has announced the creation of the Tracy Morgan Excellence in Broadcasting Award.
40th Annual Stellar Gospel Award Winners Revealed
Central City Productions' “40th Stellar Gospel Music Awards” were held on August 16th, 2025 at the historic Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, TN.
RIP: Chuck Girard (Love Song)
Chuck Girard of the pioneering Christian rock band Love Song passed away Monday, August 11, 2025, at the age of 81. Born in Los Angeles, California, on August 27, 1943, Girard was a member of the vocal group the Castells (Era), whose "Sacred" and "So This Is Love" made the [...]
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BMI celebrated the best in Christian music June 17 at the 2025 BMI Christian Awards held at its Nashville office on Music Row.
Gospel artist Micah Lee has made headlines as the first independent male artist to secure four Stellar Award nominations, more than any other independent male artist in the history of the show
Central City Productions proudly announces the nominees for the 40th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards presented by Procter and Gamble, across 36 categories, honoring the year’s best and brightest in gospel music.
“Bless Your Name” is a straightforward worship song based on the opening verses of Psalm 34, but where some worship leaders would play it straight, Tonya Baker juggles the melodic line like a jazz chanteuse.
Brent Jones and the Best Life Choir’s rafter-raising Praise in the Choir Stand offers Sunday morning gospel chock full of R&B influences.
LATEST 5 STAR REVIEWS
Various Artists Malaco 50th Celebration Malaco Music Group (release date: February 25, 2022) www.malaco.com By Robert M. Marovich The nearly two-hour Malaco 50th Celebration two CD set (and companion DVD) is one of the best releases thus far this year. Recorded live on July 12, 2018, at the record company’s golden anniversary gala at Thalia [...]
Dedicated Men of Zion The Devil Don’t Like It https://fatpossum.com/collections/bible-tire-recording-co (release date: March 3, 2022) By Robert M. Marovich On The Devil Don’t Like It, their follow-up to 2020’s Can’t Turn Me Around, the Dedicated Men of Zion quartet breathes new life into a handful of gospel classics by fitting them with arrangements that sound [...]
Maranda Curtis Die to Live Butterfly Works / Red Alliance Media / Fair Trade Services Release date: February 18, 2022 www.iammaranda.com By Robert M. Marovich Although his declaration doesn’t appear until several minutes into the album, Bishop John Francis essentially states the theme of Maranda Curtis’s new album Die to Live. After quoting John 12:24, [...]
Javon Jackson The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni Solid Jackson (release date: February 18, 2022) https://www.javonjackson.com https://nikki-giovanni.com By Robert M. Marovich The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni is a Black History Month treat from a jazz combo led by Javon Jackson, saxophonist and former member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and the iconic poet and [...]
Various ArtistsSacred Soul of North CarolinaMusic Maker Foundation / Bible & Tire (release date: October 15, 2021)https://biglegalmessrecords.com/collections/bible-tire By Robert M. Marovich Just before the pandemic shut down the world, Alice Vines of the Glorifying Vines Sisters of Farmville, North Carolina (crate diggers will know their singles on Pinewood and Sound Hut), gathered ten other local [...]
LATEST PICK OF THE WEEK – SINGLES
“Call On Him” Fantastik Violinaires feat. Danny Walker Millennium Sound Records (release date: September 27, 2024)
Based on Amos 9:13-15, “Suddenly” is an auspicious debut single from Christian Anderson, an accomplished and affecting Greensboro, North Carolina, singer.
“There Wouldn’t Be a Me” Shonda English Gospel Diva Music (release date: January 23, 2024)
“Never Turn Back” Gregory G. Pearson feat. Angelena Starks Inner Court Music (release date: September 15, 2023)
Melvin Crispell III – the BET Sunday Best Season 9 champion – gives James Fryson’s classic composition “God Is” an easygoing shuffle tempo.
Conversations with the Gospel Legends: Delores Scott
On our latest episode of "Conversations with the Gospel Legends," we talk with singer Delores Scott, member of the 'Ship, the Tommies, and an altogether integral part of Chicago's gospel community. Special thanks to Rev. Harold Bailey, Mr. Clarence McMillon, and the PCC Network for making this broadcast possible.
Conversations with the Gospel Legends – Rev. Dr. Stanley Keeble
On this episode of "Conversations with the Gospel Legends," the Reverend Dr. Stanley Keeble talks about his days as an accompanist, as part of the Fellowship M.B. Church music ministry, his Voices of Triumph group, his mentor Willie Webb, and the Chicago gospel scene of the 1950s and 1960s. Conversations [...]
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.
By Bob Marovich Like Beatles and Bob Dylan purists, fans of gospel’s celebrated Clark Sisters know every harmony, every vocal ornamentation, and every nuance of every singer on every song by heart—almost better than the artists themselves. No pressure on Donald Lawrence, musical director of The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel. The biopic premieres [...]
By Bob Marovich From time to time, such as on major holidays or when the young people’s choir was singing, young Gloria Fowles and her family accompanied their grandmother to Abyssinian Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. At Abyssinian, they would listen to sermons from its pastor, the Reverend Raphus P. Means, and gospel music [...]
By Bob Marovich The sacred-secular divide in music is a uniquely modern conception, and it misses the point. In West Africa, where most enslaved Africans came from, all music was sacred and all music was secular. There was no distinction…until the music came to America during the African Diaspora and distinctions based on intent were [...]
Gospel singer and background vocalist Emily "Cissy" Houston passed away October 7, 2024, at age 91.
The Journal of Gospel Music was saddened to learn today from Darrell Luster of Malaco Music Group that Darryl Frierson, one-half of the twin duo the Joy Boyz, passed away. Homegoing details are below. From the Malaco Music Group bio on the Joy Boyz: If family groups are ubiquitous in gospel music, brother [...]