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 Mara Hall in Jackson, Mississippi, the package pairs current gospel stars with classic songs from Malaco’s gospel archives. Since the label owns the licensing rights to gospel music from such iconic labels as Apollo, Savoy, Atlanta International Records, Muscle Shoals Sound, GosPearl, and Onyx, it ...

“Peace Be Still” Kelontae Gavin Malaco Music Group (release date: January 20, 2022) www.malaco.com By Robert M. Marovich At the Malaco Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration in Jackson, Mississippi, gospel soloist Kelontae Gavin put his own melismatic touch on “Peace Be Still.” It’s from the CD and DVD chronicling the Fiftieth Anniversary concert, where today’s gospel artists reprised classics from the Malaco gospel catalog. Gavin doesn’t use the Rev. James Cleveland / Gwendolyn Cooper Lightner arrangement of “Peace Be Still” but instead borrows the score Thomas Whitfield wrote for Vanessa Bell Armstrong. Sweet background vocalists chant “peace be still” and “peace” as ...

“God’s Power” Minister John Taylor Jr. John Jr. Gospel Productions, Inc. By Bob Marovich Minister John Taylor Jr. recorded this song in 2016, but it sounds as if it was recorded 50 years earlier. “God’s Power” is a reassurance to all those who are sick, especially Taylor’s mother, whose illness inspired Taylor to write the song. The sweet country melody comes from the southern gospel tradition, but Taylor’s expressive vocals and the background singers have gospel quartet stamped all over them. Born in Peoria, Illinois, adopted through Catholic Charities, and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Taylor is the founder of John ...

By Bob Marovich The collaboration between Stellar Award-winning Arkansas gospel quartet Tim Rogers and the Fellas and the Grammy-nominated R&B sensation Calvin Richardson that resulted in the Fellas’ latest single, “Hold Out,” began in the unlikeliest of places: an airport. Rogers and Richardson ran into one another while moving through the Memphis International Airport. Rogers told the Journal of Gospel Music that although the two men had never met face-to-face, “his family knew me and of course I knew him. We vowed to do something together, and we made sure we kept our word.” The result of their collaboration, “Hold Out” ...

Jackson, MS (March 15, 2019): After twenty-eight years of heading the label, Doug Williams is officially retiring from his role as President and CEO of Blackberry Records as of April 1, 2019. Williams was instrumental in signing such artists as Bishop Paul S. Morton, the Canton Spirituals, the Williams Brothers and many others. Williams says: “We’ve had an incredible 28 years and made some history along the way. However, God is leading me in other directions at this time in my life.” Doug Williams will continue his involvement in the music industry, sharing that “music is my first love, therefore, ...