Bishop Leonard Scott

Bishop Leonard Scott is known in the Gospel Music Industry as the Bishop of Praise and Worship. He is the founder of Tyscot label, a fiery pastor, an inspiring gospel artist, and a gifted songwriter. Bishop Scott has been a blessing to the church body for many years with his anointed music ministry. He is helping to preserve and keep our traditional hymns and church songs in our hearts to enjoy for years to come.

Gospelcity.com: Bishop Scott, share with us some of the highlights from your gospel music background.

Bishop Leonard Scott: How much time do you have? I actually started 30 years ago in the gospel music industry. We are the nation’s oldest Black-owned gospel label - Tyscot - that started in 1976. I’ve seen a lot changes over the years. I started out with our church choir during a recording. I never thought about us having a label with an artist on it. It kinda grew.

We got our first real break when signed Rev. Bill Sawyer and the Christian Tabernacle Choir. I remember trying to get radio announcers to try to play songs. Rev. Sawyer had a hit song on the record called Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross. The song just flipped our situation around and the radio stations started calling saying you got that Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross record? It kinda put us on the map.

Shortly after that, I received a demo tape from a young man who never put out a project before and he wanted a deal - Rev. John P. Kee. So that really put us on the map. We did have some things to happen where the distributor we had went bankrupt but God kept us in there. Today, we have some of the finest artists on our label such as Shirley Murdock, Rance Allen, Vashawn Mitchell, Bishop Larry Trotter, The Anointed Pace Sisters, Lucinda Moore and Carman. We are trying to keep doing the work of the Lord.

GC: Why are you doing a series of Hymns and Church Songs projects?

LS: Praise and worship music is my heart. But I also love the hymns from the church. I noticed that we were sorta getting away from the hymns… and catching on to praise and worship. I know the Lord said, “Sing a new song” but He didn’t say throw the old ones away. I noticed that the hymns have an anointing on them that is different from praise and worship…because sometime a praise and worship song just don’t cut it.

A hymn has a different anointing on it. That’s why I did a series of hymns projects; we did the first one in Indianapolis … the second in Chicago at Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church … the third in Baltimore, Maryland and the latest in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s interesting. Each place we would go to had a different sound. I think because it was a different part of the country. When we went to Birmingham it was kind of a Southern insight. When we got there they said “Are you going to do a metered hymn.” It’s one of those songs from back in the day when they didn’t have instruments or anything. Someone would say a line and everyone would repeat singing the line in a slow pace. They did A Charge to Keep as the metered hymn on the project. We did include a couple of praise and worship songs on the projects. Another song we did was a Pentecostal praise medley. It has a bunch of praise songs that we’ve done since the beginning… like Living He Loved Me Dying He Saved Me and God Is a Good God.

GC: I believe God is calling you to keep our old traditional songs alive and introduce it to this new generation.

LS: A lot of these songs my grandmomma’s grandmomma sang. Many of us were in their bellies when they were singing them.

GC: What are your plans in 2007?

LS: We are actually going to put out another project. It will be a praise and worship project. We already have a Praise and Worship Volume l… Volume 2 … we’ve done a number of them … the Celebration of Praise. This is another praise and worship project but we’ll probably put some hymns on it. We’ll do this project probably toward the end of the year.

GC: Give us your website contact information to keep us informed about your music ministry and record label.

LS: My website it www.bishoplscott.com and the label site is www.tyscot.com.