Armstead Ford & Calvin Ivy – Anthems of Hope

Armstead Ford & Calvin Ivy
Anthems of Hope
God’s Harvesters (release date: August 1, 2025)

By Robert M. Marovich

Armstead Ford is an independent artist with an old soul.

The St. Louis-born singer-songwriter prefers the old songs of Zion, as well as newly-composed songs written and arranged in the traditional style. Anthems of Hope, Ford’s new release featuring fellow singer Calvin Ivy, showcases his fealty to traditional gospel.

Of the album’s ten tracks, two in particular merit special attention. One is Ford’s “I’m Gonna Sail Away.” We hear him delivering this unaccompanied spiritual-like piece at his mother’s funeral, held in April 2023 at Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis. Four months later, Ford found himself singing the song at his father’s home going service.

The second is also an a cappella song, this one called “I Know I’ve Been Blessed,” with Ford fronting God’s Harvesters, a quartet comprised of friends Calvin Ivy, Finas White, Andre Redding, and Warren Gilmore. What’s particularly striking about “I Know I’ve Been Blessed” is the bass voice that anchors the sound in the postwar quartet tradition. Unfortunately, outside of southern gospel, the bass voice has been all but supplanted by the electric bass. Nevertheless, a bass voice brings such richness to a song, including this one, that its exclusion is a deficit to modern quartet singing.

The album also includes “Jesus Poured His Love Down,” which was Ford’s debut single, and “Have Mercy, O Grace,” a duet with Calvin Ivy and a February 2024 JGM Pick of the Week. Besides the wooden-church-on-the-hill fare, Ford offers the contemporary “I Was the Prodigal Son.”

Although the studio version of “I’m Gonna Sail Away” and the instrumental at the end of the album could easily have been replaced with more songs like the congregational call-and-response “King Jesus Did,” Anthems of Hope sounds like a Bible & Tire release. Its foundation is fixed solidly in a soulful past.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “I’m Gonna Sail Away,” “I Know I’ve Been Blessed”