Sandra Crouch, the American Gospel music performer, drummer and songwriter.With All Of My Heart, 1992
We're Waiting For You, 1985
We Sing Praises, 1983
Andrae Crouch, the seven-time Grammy Award-winning American gospelsinger, songwriter, arranger, recording artist, record producer, and pastor.
Harold Ivory Williams, was an American jazzkeyboardist most known for working with Miles Davis, Michal Urbaniak, and the late Rev. James Cleveland.Williams was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was named after his father, Bishop Harold I. Williams, D.D., who was the Senior prelate of the Mount Calvary Churches Of America and International Inc. from 1972 - 2009. He is the stepson to Grammy Award-winning gospel singer Shirley Caesar -Williams. Williams started playing piano at the age of 3, becoming an accomplished and sought-after pianist.
Raised in church where his grandmother, father and mother were the Pastors at one time or another, Williams was the church organist. He was often in demand all over the city, as well as up and down the East Coast. Williams appeared on the album, The Best Of James Cleveland and the Gospel Music Workshop of America.
He was heralded by many in the late 1960s - 80's as a musical genius and electronic wizard (long before technology became the norm), and was consequently revered as being ahead of his time. He played a very active role in the development of the Jazz Fusion Era introducing elements of Gospel and classical music to the mix as evidence on the Big Fun, Miles Davis album.
Equally proficient in jazz, gospel, and classical music, Williams is a former student of thePeabody Institute.
Williams has appeared as a solo artist at Carnegie Hall and has performed with Miles Davis,James Cleveland, George Duke, MFSB TSOP, Albertina Walker, David Liebman, Michal Urbaniak, and his wife, singer Urszula Dudziak, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and others while still a teenage prodigy Williams, on the verge of international success, was forced to stop due to a debilitating illness. He continue to play in church until his death in 2010.
Thomas A. Dorsey, He is known as "the father of black gospel music" and was at one time so closely associated with the field that songs written in the new style were sometimes known as "dorseys." Earlier in his life he was a leading blues pianist known as Georgia Tom.As formulated by Dorsey, gospel music combines Christian praise with the rhythms of jazz and the blues. His conception also deviates from what had been, to that time, standard hymnal practice by referring explicitly to the self, and the self's relation to faith and God, rather than the individual subsumed into the group via belief.
Dorsey was the music director at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago from 1932 until the late 1970s. His best known composition, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", was performed by Mahalia Jackson and was a favorite of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and "Peace in the Valley", which was a hit for Red Foley in 1951 and has been performed by dozens of other artists, including Queen of Gospel, Albertina Walker, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.
In 2002, the Library of Congress honored his album Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey (1973), by adding it to the United States National Recording Registry.
Unhappy with the treatment received at the hands of established publishers, Dorsey opened the first black gospel music publishing company, Dorsey House of Music. He also founded his own gospel choir and was a founder and first president of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses.
His influence was not limited to African American music, as white musicians also followed his lead. "Precious Lord" has been recorded by Albertina Walker, Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Clara Ward, Dorothy Norwood, Jim Reeves, Roy Rogers, and Tennessee Ernie Ford, among hundreds of others. It was a favorite gospel song of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and was sung at the rally the night before his assassination, and, per his request, at his funeral by Mahalia Jackson. It was also a favorite of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who requested it to be sung at his funeral. Dorsey was also a great influence on other Chicago-based gospel artists such as Albertina Walker and The Caravans and Little Joey McClork.
Dorsey wrote "Peace in the Valley" for Mahalia Jackson in 1937, which also became a gospel standard. He was the first African American elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and also the first in the Gospel Music Association's Living Hall of Fame. In 2007, he was inducted as a charter member of the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana. His papers are preserved at Fisk University, along with those of W.C. Handy, George Gershwin, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
Dorsey's works have proliferated beyond performance, into the hymnals of virtually all American churches and of English-speaking churches worldwide.
Thomas was a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated.
He died in Chicago, Illinois and was interred there in the Oak Woods Cemetery.
VaShawn Mitchell, was born and raised in Chicago, IL. The city known as the birthplace of Gospel music quickly made its imprint on him. When he was barely a teenager, VaShawn became the assistant music director of St. Mark Baptist Church, working closely with nationally renowned choir leader Lonnie Hunter.
For nearly a decade he served as Minister of Music at Bishop Larry D. Trotter’s Sweet Holy Spirit Church, setting the musical tone both within the church walls and on the ministry’s top-selling recording projects. The youngest Minister of Music in that church’s history, he successfully merged the contemporary themes he composed with the traditional choir vibe that marked the church’s worship services.
Throughout the years, VaShawn’s artistic vision has grown, shaping him into a mature worship leader and a recognized Gospel songwriter. His songs have been recorded by some of Gospel’s most celebrated artists, including Smokie Norful (“Just Can’t Stop”), Vanessa Bell Armstrong (“Help”), and Bishop Paul Morton (“Cry Your Last Tear”).
It is now his role as a music minister that brings him the greatest fulfillment. “I am most passionate about my church ministry,” he shares. “As ministers of music we birth new worshippers and new praisers on a weekly basis. A lot of that is not necessarily singing, but ministering the music that is being sung. “
His fervor for worship and praise can be felt throughout Triumphant; from the enthusiastic high praise opener and the powerful title track, to the deeply personal choir ballad “Nobody Greater” and the prophetic hymn “Be Fruitful.” More than a collection of hits, the project stands as a fully developed theme.
“Most of the time when I record, I conceptualize the project as a total piece,” VaShawn reveals. “With this album God gave me the concept and I started thinking about why we are triumphant people.”
Every song on the project is a reflection of that revelation, including the show-stopping, instant classic “His Blood Still Works,” which features the distinctive sound of former Witness lead vocalist Lisa Page Brooks. “Over the last season, as people have been struggling financially, it seems we’ve been losing our faith. Our faith was misplaced in resources and not in the Source,” says VaShawn. “I wanted to remind people that the blood never stopped working. It enables us to live above what we see.”
With a passion for worship, the heart of an encourager and the story of an overcomer, VaShawn Mitchell is truly an artist for this age.
To listen to his hit single "Nobody Greater" click here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8nTrpD7nV4
Damita Haddon, the American gospel singer. She is married to Stellar Award winner Deitrick Haddon.