Mary Mary- The Sound

The enormous contributions from gospel duo Mary Mary to the preface of 21st century urban contemporary gospel remains poignant as ever; years after their breakout debut album Thankful. Sisters Erica and Tina Campbell, along with their hit-making producer Warryn Campbell (Erica’s husband), have emerged to become important trendsetters for the ever-evolving genre. And while the girls are usually only celebrated for their gifted set of vocals, their incredible songwriting abilities, responsible for crossover inspirations like the R&B Top 50 hit “Yesterday,” the R&B Top 10 favorite “Shackles (Praise You” and “Heaven,” should be just as equally celebrated and acknowledged. And with three albums already under their belt (not including a well-received holiday album), the Inglewood duo continues their reign on the gospel charts with their street sounds and their uncanny, yet innovative approach to build a bridge for listeners to R&B’s and gospel’s glorified past. An obvious criticism most observers have noticed about Mary Mary’s music is that, sometimes, their sound tends to come off quite predictable; as if they aim to take the safest route around what is hot on the charts at that time. They pulled off a good refreshing single on Incredible and their 2005 self-titled project, but some questioned if Mary Mary had what it took to avoid being piegon-holed into a particular sound. On The Sound, the group’s fifth collection of music, the group creates their best effort yet to avoid their former Mary Mary formula and previous musical patterns. There’s no trace of obvious samples or simple melodies looping from start-to-finish aboard - a definite sign that Mary Mary put some hard work into making this project.

Read entire review by J. Matt at PrayzeHymnOnline: http://prayzehymnonline.com

Bishop Paul S. Morton- Cry Your Last Tear

With a flood of projects hitting the shelves in the mid ‘90s, the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship Mass Choir introduced a movement that symbolically brought the best of gospel music to the church experience. With Bishop Paul Morton leading the newly-formed Baptist organization, the annual assembled choir - led by A. Jeffery LaValley and Byron Cage - turned out a number of best-selling albums including A New Thing and Bow Down and Worship Him. What surprised many inside and outside the organization is how Morton pulled some of the greatest songwriters and singers like BeBe Winans, the Williams Brothers, Kirk Franklin and Ann Nesby into the recordings. Strong material with big names gave Morton a solid advantage with his core fan base and his toughest skeptics. That prominence began to shrink by 2000 as new shifts and ideas were incorporated. Since then, the church fellowship’s recordings, except for the Sanchez Harley-supported Daughters of the Promise project released in 2002, have placed more emphasis on praise-and-worship. And even with the recent saga of Morton’s beloved Greater St. Stephens suffering from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina and a church fire in 2007, Bishop Paul S. Morton still remains busy with putting out solo projects and recordings from the Full Gospel music ministries. On Cry Your Last Tear, the Bishop once again “introduces” his choir during their 2008 convention in Birmingham, Alabama and whips out a lengthy nineteen-track offering filled with ministerial moments, interludes, spoken word introductions and big doses of slow-paced worship music.

Read entire review by J. Matt at PrayzeHymnOnline: http://prayzehymnonline.com

Kurt Carr & The Kurt Carr Singers- Just The Beginning

After releasing a number of successful albums with the Kurt Carr Singers such as No One Else (1997) and Awesome Wonder (2000), Kurt Carr adopted a serious work ethic to help revive the careers of Byron Cage, Paul S. Morton and Tramaine Hawkins. All thanks to the scoring of the popular church anthem “In the Sanctuary” and the mega hit status of “The Presence of the Lord Is Here,” Carr has emerged to become one of the industry’s most watched trailblazers. But a big stumble from the adventurous and highly theatric One Church fell on deaf ears in 2004. Four years later, Kurt Carr returns with his first two-disc collection Just the Beginning; an ambitious project Carr calls “singer-friendly, very congregational” and a “return to my roots.” It’s not hard to imagine Carr writing congregational-friendly material (look at Awesome Wonder and No One Else) nor is it hard to grasp Carr returning to his roots. His enriched gospel training came from the late James Cleveland after a move to the West Coast. After joining Cleveland’s staff, Carr began to spread his wings by exposing his keen compositional style with the King of Gospel during the final years of his career. While he always possessed that theatric spice in his early material, Carr remained on course with merging his own unique style with the traditions of contemporary gospel music. On Just the Beginning, Carr remains invigorated with raising the barometer on his animated, pompous gospel style.

Read entire review by J. Matt at PrayzeHymnOnline: http://prayzehymnonline.com

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