A new hallelujah chorus

IN a $15 billion industry, American fans buy a gospel album every three minutes, outnumbering jazz, classical and Latin sales put together. In Britain, there is so little interest in a music style that mixes a clap happy Christian message with a finger-snapping beat, the meagre sales profit is barely quantifiable.

But all that is about to change. This month, nearly a dozen gospel acts will have made as many appearances in Britain, with the main man, Donnie McClurkin, America's biggest-selling gospel artist, at number one for 17 consecutive weeks in Billboard's gospel chart, already booked to return in August. And the climax of this uplifting invasion is on Sunday, when top-selling US choirs like Trinity 5:7 and Gospel Gangster will appear - or rather minister - at the Victory Church Centre, Kilburn, while newcomers 19-year-old Ametria, Shelley Gaines and Nysa Shenay will join veteran favourites Marvin Sapp, Nancey Jackson

and Darwin Hobbs at the west London club and cabaret venue Po Na Na - Hammersmith Palais in a previous life.

The cynical conclusion to draw from a profusion of imported evangelicalism that would lift even Wesley's spirit is that the money men controlling the US market have decided that now is the time to move in on the UK's untapped market. After all, the genre has spawned some of the recording world's most lucrative singers, like Little Richard, Stevie Wonder, James Brown and Aretha Franklin.

"No industry in the world," says Roney Henderson, head of Music Star Promotions,Donnie McClurkin's British agent, "can avoid the nasties milking the gullible. But don't believe this month's influx of US gospel acts is anything more than coincidence."

Not so, says Lucilda Prentzler-Stuart of British Urban Praise Promotions, the Po Na Na concert producer, who detects no less than the hand of God raising the spiritual level, if not the mercury, of a British summer.

"It's a spontaneous spiritual thing," insists barrister Prentzler- Stuart.

"We have seen in this country that secularism and a multi-faith culture don't work and we are turning back to God like we did in the Seventies with John Lennon and Cat Stevens.

When even our bishops appear to be non-believers we desperately need a simple, clear message from somewhere and the Christian message means the most. If Jesus Christ were alive today, he would go into the clubs and bars.

He always took his ministry to the point of need and that's exactly what He's doing in London this summer, trying to bring awareness through His music."

The last big commercial push of gospel music in Britain was the Light record label in the mid-Eighties with a stable of artists including Tremayne Hawkins and Andre Crouch. The company tried to spread its successful mail-order operation across

the Atlantic, but even if the company had not died a scandalous death with rumours of unpaid bills and artists, British apathy also took its toll, and the mantra "Gospel doesn't sell in Great Britain" was born the States, and, according to Henderson, still pertains.

"Forty-two per cent of Americans are churchgoers," she says, "compared with barely 10 per cent in Britain - the Brits are just not into Christianity. Audiences over here like the feelgood factor when they go to a concert; they are not happy when they feel preached to."

And, according to Prentzler-Stuart, the apathy extends beyond the pews.

"Thanks to the big outlets like WH Smith's being deeply sceptical about the popularity Christianity," she says, "no matter how much information we print, we can't place it, and the public remains ignorant of the gospel message we are trying to get across."

Nevertheless, markets move when record companies snap their fingers.

"Labels like Zamba, Gospocentric and EMI Gospel are rumoured to be investing huge sums in setting up London offices," says Henderson, "and every major record label now has a gospel branch."

HENDERSON is also the cofounder with GMTV Britain's first Gospel Awards, the Oasis Prize ("representing a fertile place in the desert"), whose winner will receive a recording contract with the Integrity Music label, a slot on GMTV well as an appearance at the London awards ceremony in October.

"I'm trying to help the hand of God," she admits, "by working to raise the profile gospel and reach a wider audience in this country."

The way forward for Henderson is remix a couple of singles, probably from McClurkin's latest album, Live in London and More, now platinum in the States, and target mainstream radio and TV.

"Try for Top of the Pops," she explains, "we've got to get outside the black/gospel arena."

Prentzler-Stuart agrees. "The important thing," she says, "is to get the mix right between pop and Christ. As far as we are concerned, in an ideal world we would play the Albert Hall and Bayswater's Gospel Caf - we have to get everyone's interest. Christ's is a universal message though we would draw the line at sharing a bill with Eminem."

_ BUP Concert at Po Na Na: Ticketweb, 020 7771 2000. Trinity 5:7 and Gospel Gangster at Victory Church, 020 7794 7494.

Copyright 2001
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