“Heaven Belongs to You” – The Alabama Gurlz
“Heaven Belongs to You” The Alabama Gurlz From 4 Winds Records CD “The Gurlz” Live (2014) www.malaco.com “Y’all ready to go to church?” Stephania Johnson asks the church audience kindly. Not receiving a proper response, she growls in frustration: “Y’all don’t want to go to no church with me!” That [...]
Howard Ziwa – Dawn
Howard Ziwa Dawn – Volume 1 www.ziwamusic.com By Bob Marovich Howard Ziwa’s Dawn—I’m tempted to call it an EP because it has eight tracks and weighs in at under thirty minutes—has its high points and low points. Let’s start with the high points. The EP’s finest selections, “Alele” and “Let [...]
Bishop Samuel R. Blakes – I Survived
Bishop Samuel R. Blakes I Survived Top Music Group/Fountain of Life Records/ Central South Distribution (release date: July 31, 2015) By Bob Marovich The African American church is blessed with many pastors who can sing. I mean really sing. Bishop Samuel R. Blakes is one of them. Senior Pastor of New [...]
Yardley Griffin – Hear Me Now
Yardley Griffin Hear Me Now Black Market Blue (release date: September 11, 2015) www.blackmarket.blue By Bob Marovich Yardley Griffin knew from age seven that he wanted to serve God. At sixteen he began writing songs and turned his interest in music into a job as worship leader at Destiny Church, the [...]
“Hold On” – Debbie Orange
“Hold On” Debbie Orange Debbie Orange Publishing Company (2015) www.DebbieOrange.com Chicago-based Debbie Orange’s new single, “Hold On,” is an inadvertent but ideal herald of the coming year. I doubt she intended it to be so, but her mid-tempo hand-clapper, produced by Montage Pheloan, is the kind of optimistic gospel song [...]
JGM Pick of the Week: October 19, 2015
“Hear Us” Maurice Griffin MGM Chicago Music Group www.mauricegriffinonline.com Maurice Griffin went from being in the Chicago-based gospel group New Direction to winning the Gospel Music Workshop of America Gospel Treasure competition in 2007, then to being a finalist on Season Two of BET's Sunday Best. He was nominated for [...]
Hell in the Choirstand – Titus Pollard
Titus Pollard Hell in the Choirstand Self-published 287 pages; released April 2015 By Bob Marovich The clash between good and evil as played out on the battleground of music is a timeless theme. From Biblical days, when David played the harp to release the evil spirit from King Saul, to Charlie Daniels’s [...]
Stryper – Fallen
Stryper Fallen Frontiers Music srl (release date: October 16, 2015) www.stryper.com By Bob Marovich For Christians about to rock, we salute you. Immediately following the Gothic a cappella harmonies that open Fallen, Stryper’s eleventh full-length original album, the four-man Christian metal band rock relentlessly until the CD screeches to a stop [...]
Lecrae Wins Big at 46th Annual GMA Dove Awards
By Bob Marovich Lecrae was among the top awardees at the 46th annual GMA Dove Awards celebration, held yesterday evening at Allen Arena on the campus of Nashville's Lipscomb University. The Billboard-topping Christian hip hop artist took home three honors: Artist of the Year, Rap/Hip Hop Album of the Year (Anomaly), and [...]
Joyful Gospel – We’ve Got a River to Cross
Joyful Gospel We’ve Got a River to Cross Rampart Street Music www.rampartstreetmusic.com By Bob Marovich Although Joyful Gospel gets top billing, the choir we hear on the album We’ve Got a River to Cross, released on the New Orleans-based label Rampart Street Music, is actually a blend of choral ensembles. [...]
JGM Pick of the Week: October 12, 2015
“You Should Have Been There” Virginia Aires www.VirginiaAires.com The Virginia Aires’s new single is a mid-tempo rouser with a backbeat that exudes the sheer joy of personal salvation. The before and after effects of being saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost is a familiar narrative in gospel music. [...]
Carla Martin – One Word
Carla Martin One Word The Cloud Music (2014) http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/carlamartin1 By Bob Marovich Although Carla Martin has been singing for the better part of ten years, One Word is her debut album. Martin possesses a pleasant, power pop alto with a tight vibrato and the ability to get down into Toni [...]
Tonya Lewis-Taylor: Delayed But Not Denied
Tonya Lewis-Taylor Delayed but Not Denied EARS Entertainment Group (2014) www.tonyalewistaylor.com By Bob Marovich Tonya Lewis-Taylor may be the most generous gospel artist when it comes to sharing the microphone with others. On her mostly live debut solo CD, Delayed but Not Denied, the former background singer for pop artists [...]
“Alright” – Tony Mclendon
“Alright” Tony Mclendon From the forthcoming The Music Church CD I’m a Winner Available on iTunes Taking his cue from a snippet of the vamp from Kool and the Gang’s “Ladies Night,” Tony Mclendon, along with a party of equally enthusiastic supporters and a relentless disco beat, offer up spiritual [...]
JGM Pick of the Week: October 5, 2015
“My Son” Okey Sokay From the forthcoming Orangeville Music album Revealed https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/my-son-single/id1042589852 This week’s pick takes us to the Ebonyi State of Nigeria and an artist named Okechukwu Dickson, who goes by the stage name of Okey Sokay. “My Son” is a tuneful, piano-driven solo on God’s fatherly compassion, written [...]
Daughter of U.S. Soul Singer Presents Gospel Program in Western Australia
By Bob Marovich Gospel music has been an international phenomenon for more than sixty years, enjoyed in nearly every corner of the world. This includes Western Australia, where the Joyful Noise Gospel Choir will present Gospel Music @ the Rocks #2. The program (above) will take place November 7, 2015, at [...]
Alexis Spight – Dear Diary
Alexis Spight Dear Diary Uncle G Records / eOne Music (2015) www.unclegpromo.com By Bob Marovich On the opening track of her new album, Dear Diary, the blazingly red haired Alexis Spight declares she comes from the old church and commences to sing a medley of congregation classics as an “old [...]
Appointed2 – This Journey
Appointed2 This Journey (2014) www.appointed2.com By Bob Marovich Husband-and-wife music evangelists Randy and Amy Nichols are part of a tradition going back nearly a century, and perhaps longer. The difference is that back in the day, evangelists sang and played stringed instruments on street corners. The Nichols’s, known as Appointed2, [...]
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