Mike Lee – All I Need (EP)
Mike Lee All I Need Mike Lee Music (release date: June 16, 2015) www.mikeleemusic.com By Bob Marovich Fort Wayne, Indiana. worship leader and mixed martial arts gym owner Mike Lee follows up his full-length national debut LP Awakening Hearts with a seven-track acoustic EP called All I Need. With a [...]
JGM Pick of the Week: July 6, 2015
“He Touched Me” Dr. LouDella Evans-Reid and the Traditional Gospel Choir www.loudellaevansreid.com If you like that aggressive, churchy gospel choir sound that came straight outta Chicago, false coda and all, you will love “He Touched Me.” This Thurston Frazier chestnut is given a full-throttle reading by the Traditional Gospel Choir, [...]
E. L. Williams – Where Sin Met the Blood
E. L. Williams Where Sin Met the Blood Tate Music Group (2015) www.tatemusicgroup.com By Bob Marovich There was a time when bass singers were compulsory for any self-respecting quartet, but today they are as rare as hen’s teeth, save for classical music and opera, where the basso profundo remains the [...]
Sada K – Long Story Short
Sada K Long Story Short (released January 2015) www.sadakmusic.com By Bob Marovich “Everyone has a story,” Sada K says in the opening moments of her solo CD, Long Story Short. Her story, she admits, was stained with tears, but it’s “time to shine the light.” And for forty minutes, that’s [...]
“Empty Me” – Javon Inman
“Empty Me” Javon Inman www.javoninman.com Set for release on July 7, “Empty Me” is the latest single from award-winning independent gospel artist Javon Inman. Performed with background vocalists, “Empty Me” is a passionate and bracing mid-tempo ballad on which Inman cries out for divine intervention because “the plans of men,” [...]
JGM Pick of the Week: June 29, 2015
“Back 2 Life” Juzang From the EP Back 2 Life www.juzangmusic.com Check out the home page of the website of Alabama-based female gospel/inspirational group Juzang, and you will see the trio peacefully slumbering. Make no mistake: the ladies aren't slumbering on their single, "Back 2 Life." They make a joyful [...]
Jimmy Needham – Vice & Virtue
Jimmy Needham Vice & Virtue Platinum Pop Records (released May 4, 2015) www.jimmyneedham.com By Bob Marovich Christian artist Jimmy Needham gives us plenty to ponder on Vice & Virtue, his seventh album and first for his own imprint, Platinum Pop Records. Needham’s music is youthful and rhythmic, a playful potpourri [...]
Fannie Lou Hamer – Songs My Mother Taught Me
Fannie Lou Hamer Songs My Mother Taught Me Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (release date: June 30, 2015) www.folkways.si.edu By Bob Marovich While it took a recent act of domestic terror for the polarizing Confederate flag to begin coming down throughout the South, let us not forget that much of the way [...]
The Gospel Angels – I Still Remember
The Gospel Angels I Still Remember Next Level Publishing (2004) www.thegospelangelsdc.com By Bob Marovich I Still Remember has been around for more than a decade—it was released the year the Journal of Gospel Music was born, in fact—but this album by the Gospel Angels of Washington, DC, is worth revisiting [...]
JGM Pick of the Week: June 22, 2015
“Something About That Name” Lorraine Stancil Anointed Sounds Records (2015) I’m rather stoked about the recent release of so many traditional-style gospel singles, including this one by Psalmist Lorraine Stancil-Lawson. Product of the Pentecostal church, Psalmist Stancil is known to kick off her shoes just like Shirley Caesar, and on [...]
“Find a Way to Love” – Mr. McCloud
“Find a Way to Love” Mr. McCloud Concrete Records Available on iTunes starting July 1, 2015 On “Find a Way to Love,” Detroit Pastor Robert McCloud puts his estimable hip hop experience to work in the service of good. He offers a general apology to all those he has hurt [...]
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Airing from 1963 to 1984, Jubilee Showcase was the longest running gospel music television show before BET's Bobby Jones Gospel. Every week, host Sid Ordower introduced television audiences of all races and creeds to the era's gospel stars. Offering "music that both entertains and inspires," as Ordower announced at the [...]
“Hey Daddy” – Derrell Thomas
“Hey Daddy” Derrell Thomas Full Circle Records (2015) www.fullcirclerecords.us Most likely because of the primacy of the family matriarch, but also because of gospel’s roots in Victorian-era hymnody, gospel music is brimming with songs about Mother. “Mother Bowed,” “Mother Prayed for Me,” “I Can See Everybody’s Mother,” “Mother Sang Those [...]
JGM Pick of the Week: June 15, 2015
“I’ll Stand” Lady Voncile feat. Pastor R. L. Bush http://gloryboundrecords.bigcartel.com To the whirring of an organ and sassy opening licks from a guitar and piano, Lady Voncile Belcher delivers this church-ready solo about faith with flatfooted conviction. She hands the microphone to the Reverend R. L. Bush, who gives the [...]
J. B. Smith: No More Good Time in the World for Me
J. B. Smith No More Good Time in the World for Me Dust to Digital (2015) www.dust-digital.com By Bob Marovich There is something bone chilling about hearing lonesome blue notes echoing off prison walls. That’s what folklorist and historian Bruce Jackson captured when he recorded the unaccompanied singing of Mr. [...]
Mr. Del Presents Holy South: Memphis in Mayhem
Mr. Del Presents Holy South: Memphis in Mayhem DMG (2015) www.noisetrade.com/holysouth/memphis-in-mayhem By Bob Marovich Quite possibly taking its title from a deliberate word play on the annual Memphis in May festival, the Memphis in Mayhem mixtape is available free of charge on Noisetrade (use the link above) by Holy South, [...]
JGM Pick of the Week: June 8, 2015
“I’ll Make It All Right” Trish Standley From the forthcoming Jan’s Joy CD No One Else www.trishstandley.com Gospel thrush and fashionista Trish Standley covers the Beautiful Zion Missionary Baptist Church Choir of Chicago’s 1973 hit, “I’ll Make It All Right,” with all of the joyous soulful funkiness of the original. [...]
Lonnie Hunter feat. Structure – #GETITDONE
Lonnie Hunter feat. Structure #GETITDONE Tyscot Records www.tyscot.com Syndicated radio host, choir director, worship pastor, former model, Stellar Award winner, recording artist, CEO, educator, and now clothing line owner, Lonnie Hunter is gospel’s Renaissance Man. Despite his busy schedule with "The Lonnie Hunter Show" and as host of the McDonald’s Inspiration [...]