Before she became a pop superstar, Whitney Houston was known as “Nippy,” daughter of gospel artist Emily “Cissy” Drinkard Houston and member of the choir at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. Like Aretha Franklin—the only vocalist Rolling Stone ranks above her on its current list of the 200 greatest singers of all […]
Author Archives: Robert Marovich
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Chicago’s Christian Tabernacle Concert Choir honors its own traditions with its first album release in two decades
Legacy, the Christian Tabernacle Concert Choir’s first release in 20 years, is a joyous collection of gospel songs and hymns, including many from the Chicago group’s original repertory. Dedicated to Christian Tabernacle’s founder, Pastor Maceo Woods, who died in January 2020, Legacy evokes the church’s 60-plus-year history of gospel supremacy with its old-school playlist, its […]
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Best new west-side arts space
To activist Glen Kehrein, it was appalling that Austin lacked a center for fine and performing arts to showcase the neighborhood’s homegrown talent. His dream was to convert the unused auditorium in the former Siena High School expansion—one of the city’s finest remaining examples of midcentury modern architecture—into a professionally equipped community arts center. Kehrein’s […]
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Before Detroit had Motown, Chicago had Vee-Jay
Vivian Carter and James Bracken formed Vee-Jay Records in 1953 to produce the “good music” that listeners of Vivian’s radio broadcasts and customers of her record store in Gary, Indiana, wanted to hear. By “good music,” her audience—largely southern-born African American migrants to the Chicago region—didn’t mean classical or pop. They hungered for electric blues, […]
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A 52-year-old crossover gospel hit gets a new lease on life
In late 1969 and early 1970, record reviewers at Billboard and Cash Box magazines suggested that “Hello Sunshine” by the Reverend Maceo Woods & the Christian Tabernacle Concert Choir, a Chicago single just picked up for distribution by Stax Records’ Volt imprint, could become the next “Oh Happy Day.” The previous June, that Edwin Hawkins […]
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Chicago celebrates a century of Black gospel
Chicago has earned bragging rights as the birthplace of Black gospel music. It was here that gospel was first composed, sung, played, published, promoted, recorded, broadcast, and formalized—the last via a national convention with regional chapters. Migrants to Chicago from the south in particular found comfort in it, because it articulated their shared experiences as […]
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Billie Barrett Greenbey of gospel legends the Barrett Sisters left us in 2020
Chicago played an outsize role in the birth of modern gospel music, but few artists remain from that foundational era.
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Tasha Cobbs Leonard celebrates unity in the historic Ryman Auditorium on her new live album
Gospel singer Tasha Cobbs Leonard produced her latest full-length album, Royalty: Live at the Ryman, with a multiracial, multigenre crew of singers and musicians who joined her on the storied boards of Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on August 3. Even though the pandemic eliminated the possibility of a live audience, the Ryman was an ideal location […]
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Chicago Mass Choir invigorates traditional gospel on My Soul Says Yes
On My Soul Says Yes, the first release by the Chicago Mass Choir in more than four years and its 17th album overall, the ensemble traverses the usual traditional gospel territory. While selections such as “Excellent Is Your Name” and “Hallelujah (You Are Worthy)” have a contemporary character similar to the choir’s 2016 single, “We […]
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Remembering Triad Radio, where the usual was unusual
Triad Radio, Chicago’s pioneering experiment in commercial free-form radio, left the airwaves in 1977. Now longtime program director Saul Smaizys is moving its archives online.