-New Urban SOUNDS- Great Music to Get Lifted to with Sunday's Grammy Nominees for Best Gospel Album
NUY 40 playlist favorites up for the Best Gospel Album Grammy on Sunday: Cece Winans, Travis Greene, Alexandria Johnson, Marvin Sapp, and Anita Wilson.
As international awards season nears its end, Sunday night the film industry steps aside for a moment while light shines on the music par excellence of 2017 with the broadcast of the 2018 Grammy Awards. Spotlighting genres ranging from classical to gospel to jazz to spoken word, the awards ceremony will be broadcast internationally, live from Madison Square Garden in New York City 1:30 am Central European Time. Of all the wonderful artists that will be part of this year's telecast, we're most excited for those in the Gospel genre- particularly the nominees Best Gospel Album. For 2017, these artists have praised, worshipped, and provided the psalm underscore to our lives, reminding us that the Lord is our hope, our strength, and our comforter, our joy, and the center of our soul. With a few grey days still to go for the remainder of winter, you'll be sure to get lifted with the Good News from the following recordings, featuring a new face or two that God is using to reach the people & some names we've known for so long that they'll likely feel like old fellowship friends.
After a 9 year absence from the gospel music charts, veteran recording artist Cece Winans returned with new music in 2017 via the 10 track cd, "Let Them Fall In Love". The inspiration for a new recording came from her son, Alvin Love III, who co-produced "Let Them Fall In Love" with Tommy Sims, and also wrote the bulk of the set's 10 songs. He provided a musical direction that led his mother into new territory. "Never Have To Be Alone," has a message timely for today, according to Winans. "One of the things we see a lot of is people dealing with loneliness," she explains. "They deal with depression. It's a song to remind you that when we pray, God is there. He is with us. We have everything we need to face everything we have to face". Since 2012, Winans has been ministering at her husband's church Nashville Light in Tennessee, serving a diverse and growing congregation that has a particularly strong millennial base. "Most of our church is probably between 20 and 30... I'm trying to teach these young people that the way we respond to troubled times is to pray... That's an awesome opportunity during the sad things that are going on to fight the way I know how to fight -- with prayer." Let Them Fall In Love" is Cece Winan's 11th Grammy nomination.
The next record, "Crossover: Live from Music City" comes from a young man with quite a testimony. When you talk about testimonies beginning at an early age, Travis Greene was a child who had been pronounced dead twice in his life before entering kindergarten.After two life-altering brushes with death in 1989 and losing his father -- Travis became very passionate about music. The artist recounts, “It was God’s way of giving me an escape from tragedy and crisis. I turned to the keyboard instead of drugs and the streets". Growing up in culturally diverse areas and experiencing various church denominations, Travis embraces his unique call for adaptability and works passionately to use his gifts to unify the body of Christ as one. Alongside his wife Dr. Jackie Greene, he leads Forward City Church in Columbia, South Carolina where he raises two sons. "Crossover: Live from Music City" is his third Grammy nomination. His first nominations were in for and in for.
Next up is "Bigger Than Me" from Le'Andria Johnson. Ms. Johnson is a woman we have watched since the literal beginning of her career as a young, quiet-spoken, homeless contestant on the BET gospel singing competition, "Sunday Best", and have marveled at how her life has transformed over the last 8 years. As her press biography best captures her story: "Le'Andria Johnson's journey to a recording career almost ran like the plot for a made-for-TV movie of the week as she overcame obstacles, hardships, and personal disasters to get there. Born on 23rd January 1983, Johnson was the twice-divorced single mother of three children when she fell on hard times, losing her home to foreclosure the day before a friend convinced her to drive to New Orleans in a borrowed car to audition for the cable TV show Sunday Best. The daughter of a preacher, Johnson had sung in front of her father's congregations since she was two years old, but she had hardly considered a professional career as a gospel singer. Johnson arrived at the audition with little time to spare, wearing flip-flops and the clothes she drove there in, she was amazed to be selected as a contestant. Johnson ended up being declared the winner at the end of the show's third season in 2010, a placing that not only came with the gift of a contest and cash prize but also a recording deal." "Bigger Than Me" is Le'Andria's fifth studio release and makes for her third Grammy nomination. She won her first Grammy in 2013 for Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Female Performance, for the recording "Jesus".
As a widowed father of three & now officially an "empty-nester,"Marvin Sapp came into 2017 with his 11th solo album, "Close." Now at the age of 50, Marvin finds himself at a crossroads in life with a fresh perspective, with his new album composed as songs which are love letters to his Creator. When describing the chief inspiration behind his single and album title "Close", Sapp shares; “It was the first song I heard for my new album and the first song I recorded,” recalls Sapp, who outside of his time with the gospel group Commissioned, is most widely known for the 2007 gospel classic “Never Would Have Made It” . Sapp was ministering at a high school near Valdosta, Georgia when a young man named Solomon Edwards stood up and began singing a song he’d written called “Close.” He remarks of the moment, “Immediately something in me said 'You have to record this song, because he’s literally singing your life,'” says Sapp. “And other people need to hear this because he’s also singing everybody’s life.” Marvin's Sapp's "Close" marks his fifth Grammy nomination.
Coming from an artist we enjoyed immensely on our 2017 music playlists is the album, "Sunday Song", by St. Louis native Anita Wilson. Previously a background singer for Donald Lawrence & Co., Hezekiah Walker, and fellow Grammy nominee Marvin Sapp, "Sunday Song" marks the third studio album and Best Gospel Album Grammy nomination for Ms. Anita Wilson (who affectionately goes by the nickname MAW). Reflecting all the salt and light of Wilson's music ministry and buoyant personality, Sunday's flagship single "I've Seen Him Work" is a bright, cheery, 'yes-He-can' anthem that samples heartily from the musical arrangement of Luther Vandross's 80's hit single "Stop To Love" and reminds the listener that there's no question, job, or problem too big for the Lord.
That concludes our New Urban SOUNDS feature for now, but be sure to check in soon for more of the latest releases in Gospel, Worship and Praise selections that are normally part of our New Urban SPIRIT posts. Until then, may you dance like David while the joy of the Lord fills your hearts!
