© 2003
Recorded at Fantasy Studios and Emeryville Recording Company

This unique, new album reflects Artistic Director Terrance Kelly’s passion for educating the public about the source of today’s gospel music. The Choir pays tribute to America’s enslaved people whose courage, spirit and raw suffering lives on in their musical form, the Spiritual. The Spiritual offers a complex tapestry of elements: celebration, worship, and faith, as well as coded communication for an oppressed people.

The slaves transformed their adverse conditions through creative expression in music. The music provided inspiration to remain intact amidst devastating injustice. Spirituals inspired with their emotional depth, but underneath this substantial layer, Spirituals also acted as a means of communication among slaves that was imperceptible by their masters. For example, through coded language, slaves could communicate about escape. Kelly explains the song, “Wade in de Water,” actually was communicating explicit directions on how to escape without dogs following your scent. Old Testament stories particularly resonated with the lives of American slaves, producing songs such as “Go Down, Moses” and “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel.”

From the bone-chilling “Lawd, How Come Me Heah?” to the title song of jubilant freedom, “Great Day,” this tribute offers a wide range of soul-touching songs. The choir’s first A Cappella album deeply expresses the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir’s mission: to employ Black gospel music to express the power of spirit and bring a message of faith, hope, love and joy to the country and to the world, to exemplify through interfaith, multiracial and multicultural membership, the principles of equality, justice, peace, unity and cooperation and to serve as a model for what is possible among all people.

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© 1999
Recorded at Fantasy Studios and Emeryville Recording Company

Music Industry Award-Winners
Shine on this CD

The outstanding talents and experience the award-winning artists and production staff have brought to this CD make it a truly unique audio and emotional high! Recorded at the trend-setting Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA, the CD features the following outstanding personnel: Emmy-winning arranger Terrance Kelly (Circle of Friends) directs the Choir. The Co-Producer/Engineer David Luke (Edwin and Walter Hawkins, Richard Smallwood, John P. Kee, Bruce Hornsby and Range) is one of today’s hottest engineers of gospel and pop albums. Bandleader/arranger Carl Wheeler (Tony Toni Toné, Sheila E, Edwin Hawkins) is an American Music Award-winner; Lead guitar player Jonathan DuBose (Richard Smallwood, Walter Hawkins, Harry Connick, Jr.) is one of the leading musicians of the industry.

The Choir has sung back-up vocals on Grammy Award-winning albums by Linda Ronstadt, Tramaine Hawkins, Hammer, and the Kronos Quartet. Prior national tours include New Orleans, Atlanta, Portland and Vancouver BC. The Choir won the Gold Award at the 1997 International Music Festival in Sydney, Australia. They toured Israel in March, 2000.

This Christmas CD from the Gospel Academy Award-winning Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir has something special for the holiday season. The rich diversity of spirituals and gospel music on the CD promises wide cross-over appeal to the extensive multi-cultural fan base that supports the acclaimed multi-racial, interfaith Choir based in Oakland, CA. We offer the following programming guide:

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© 1995
Recorded live at First Congregational Church of Oakland

This album features original contemporary Gospel songs, traditional Gospel and Spirituals.

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• Wonderful Counselor
• Calvary
• I Come a Mighty Long Way
• I Want My Savioir
• Steal Away
• God’s Grace
• Something Got a Hold On Me
• Ezekiel Saw De Wheel
• Standing on the Promises of Christ
• Over and Over
• God is Good (Praise)
• Solid Rock