Inside Gospel
(L-R) Gospel singer Coco, Bill Hearn, president of EMI, Vicki Mack Lataillade, John Styll, president of GMA, Lisa Collins, and gospel artist Richard Smallwood
By Lisa Collins, senior music editor, GospelMusicChannel.com
Last Saturday, Nashville’s Opryland was transformed into the Mecca of gospel music, playing host to the Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA) National Convention, marking the 41st annual pilgrimage to what has long been billed as the most important event on the gospel calendar.
Everyone who’s anyone in gospel understands the importance of the event, even if waning retail sales and growing Internet dependence are making the conference more of a tradition than the most essential stop on the gospel industry circuit, a label it held for four decades.
Still, it is the only place in the world where key industry players, hopefuls, announcers, manufacturers, aficionados, retailers and gospel executives alike mingle on such a grand scale.
“This year, the GMWA is bringing forth a theme that touches on where we are in churchdom and our day-to-day Christian experience. We are ‘lifting the kingdom through song,’’’ reports Al Hobbs, executive vice chair of the convention. “We recognize the times, and if anything we know that gospel music inspires, I’ve never seen God not provide a word in song for the times in which we live. That’s where our music and this convention has and will continue to play a vital role.”
Hobbs presides over the Gospel Announcer's Guild – the group's industry track – which is set to kick off Saturday, August 9, with “Ladies Lifting the Kingdom” featuring Dorinda Clark-Cole, Ann Nesby, Regina Belle, Heather Headley, Maurette Brown-Clark and Yolanda Adams, who is hosting the event with Richard Smallwood.
Other highlights of the week-long convention – which offers more than 60 workshops and seminars daily on everything from choir decorum to songwriting – include nightly musicals, an industry salute to some of gospel’s biggest families, including the Hawkins family and the Barnes family, a possible party celebrating the RIAA gold certification of Marvin Sapp’s Thirsty, a tribute to Rev. Timothy Wright, and performances from newly affirmed Bishop Hezekiah Walker, Kurt Carr, the Williams Brothers, Mighty Clouds of Joy and Deitrick Haddon.
“While a lot of people are still spending big money on albums that aren’t going anywhere,” says Hobbs, “everyone is buying in to the fact that if God breathes on it, it will happen, so it has come back to making music God will say yes to.”
That is what we remind our delegates who represent the front lines for gospel music across the country, choral singers, artists, musicians. These are the people who comprise the heart of gospel music, and this is the forum through which we challenge them to increase their knowledge through workshops, seminars, networking and performance opportunities. Rev. (James) Cleveland, our founder, challenged us to lift up gospel in excellence and that’s what we do today – reignite the passion for praise.”
Long Road Ahead for Rev. Timothy Wright
Rev. Timothy Wright has survived the injuries that left him critically hospitalized early last month after a fatal wrong-way automobile accident claimed the lives of his wife and 14-year old grandson, but the road to recovery has only just begun.
Family members have joined with Rev. Al Sharpton to raise the nearly half a million dollars his rehabilitation at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange is expected to cost as it has been revealed that Wright, dubbed the “Godfather of Gospel” suffered a severe spinal cord injury, broken jaw, multiple leg fractures and broken ribs.
The GRAMMY Award-nominated pastor remains on a ventilator, but with proper treatment could breathe on his own, operate an electric wheelchair and eventually preach and sing again. Those interested in contributing can direct checks made out to Timothy Wright to: Timothy Wright Trust?c/o Timothy Wright, 3399 Lawson Blvd., Oceanside, NY 11572.
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About the Writer
Lisa Collins, a Los Angeles native and resident, is a syndicated columnist, writer, publisher and former Billboard Magazine columnist. Her career in gospel began in 1988 with her creation of “Inside Gospel,” a daily/weekly syndicated radio series that provided news, profiles and product updates relative to the gospel music community. For the next eight years, she would also serve as executive producer of the show that was broadcast in more than 100 markets nationwide. Collins has also served as a segment producer for BET and authored well over 300 articles on a variety of issues for a number of national publications from Essence to Upscale. Her background in the field of entertainment reporting is extensive, featuring cover stories and interviews with the likes of Richard Pryor, Michael Jackson and Prince.
