“Clap Your Hands” – Batayah feat. Molech Dawid and Princess Davorah
The North Carolina-born singer has a voice as creamy and sweet as honey, and the incorporation of her children’s singing and rapping into the mix is done skillfully.
The North Carolina-born singer has a voice as creamy and sweet as honey, and the incorporation of her children’s singing and rapping into the mix is done skillfully.
Johnny Ruffin Jr.Just Johnny (EP)JBP Music (release date: July 23, 2022)By Robert M. MarovichAlthough the EP Just Johnny is a solo outing for North Carolina’s Johnny Ruffin Jr., it has a quartet sensibility to it. Ruffin has a quartet lead singer’s vocal intensity, complete with growls, evangelistic shouts, and flights [...]
“I Got a Story (to Tell)” is a rousing quartet jam on the trope of the believer telling God about his earthly troubles when he gets to heaven.To a driving tempo and conventional quartet melody, the group weaves a basket full of church and gospel music aphorisms into a joyous [...]
“Just That Good” Anthony Adams and Confirmation From the VRJ Entertainment album Trouble Don’t Last Always (release date: June 10, 2022) By Robert M. Marovich The male quartet Anthony Adams and Confirmation channel their inner Spiritual QCs on this mid-tempo track, which asks the rhetorical question: “Does anybody here know [...]
“My Faith & My Fight” (unplugged) Tina Nelms Boson Independent (release date: February 4, 2022) By Robert M. Marovich Of the orchestrated and unplugged versions of “My Faith & My Fight” by Tina Nelms Boson, my money is on the unplugged, piano-only version. It’s here that Ms. Boson shows herself [...]
Hood Memorial AME Zion Church Celebration Choir I‘m In His Plans Bison Disc (release date: February 23, 2021) https://hoodmemorialamez.com/ By Robert M. Marovich Time was, you would have looked long and hard in the AME Zion church writ large and found neither gospel music nor gospel singers anywhere within the [...]
Lena Mae Perry (front), Phil Cook (back row, far right) By Robert M. Marovich One reasonably warm Saturday in April, 2019, the Long Branch Disciples of Christ Church was especially high in the spirit. There, in the postcard-pretty church nestled in Newton Grove, North Carolina, the Branchettes, arguably [...]
“Did It Again" Ruth La’Ontra ft. Thomas and the Situation Tyscot Music and Entertainment (release date: July 8, 2022) www.tyscot.com By Robert M. Marovich Ruth La’Ontra’s new single, “Did It Again,” makes plain its premise in the lyrics: a “simple song to say thank you” for making “a way for [...]
Robert M. Marovich Ray Kroc was 52 when he opened his first McDonald’s restaurant in 1955. Col. Harland Sanders was in his 60s when his “Finger Lickin’ Good” Kentucky Fried Chicken became a national sensation. Duncan Hines didn’t license his name for cake mixes until age 73. And Johnny Ray [...]
Johnny Ray Daniels Whatever You Need Bible & Tire (release date: May 6, 2022) https://fatpossum.com/collections/bible-tire-recording-co By Robert M. Marovich Like the Blind Boys of Alabama’s Jimmy Carter and the Savettes’ Goldwire McLendon, Johnny Ray Daniels didn’t record his first solo album after until after his Social Security checks started arriving. [...]