Word Entertainment launches “All-Star Gospel Hits”

Classic Line of CDs from its Historic Vaults

On May 25, 2004 Label Releases “All-Star Gospel Hits” Cd Compilations Featuring Aretha Franklin, Candi Staton, Shirley Caesar, Donnie McClurkin, Andrae Crouch, the Clark Sisters, Smokie Norful, Ladysmith Black Mambazo Among Others

Word Entertainment, Curb and Warner Brothers Records are celebrating Black Music Month (June) in an All-Star manner. They are dipping into the deep Word Records vaults to create a new high-quality line of classic black gospel music cds. On Tuesday, May 25, 2004 the label will launch the first three volumes of its “All-Star Gospel Hits” various artists series with “Volume 1: Praise and Worship”, “Volume 2: Live” and “Volume 3: Hymns.” The cds will be released via WEA Distribution on May 25^th and via Word Distribution to the Christian Bookstore market on July 27^th.

The series is packed with familiar church standards by Aretha Franklin, Shirley Caesar, Yolanda Adams, Donnie McClurkin, Andrae Crouch and the Richard Smallwood Singers among many others. It will also feature long out of print chestnuts by Candi Staton, the Mighty Clouds of Joy and short-term Word artists such as the Williams Brothers, the Clark Sisters and even R&B star Dorothy “Misty Blue” Moore who recorded her only gospel album for Word in 1986. Gospel collectors will relish the extremely rare church songs by Chicago’s Beautiful Zion Missionary Baptist Church Choir (1973), the virtually obscure Ladies of Song (1969) that included Fifth Beatle Billy Preston’s mother Robbie Williams and even the Grammy-winning Winans joining South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo for a Third World rendition of the hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” In spite of the $9.98 suggested retail price, each cd will boast attractive cover artwork, a dozen songs, descriptive liner notes and photos.

The series is being coordinated by longtime Word Records consultants Eric Wyse and Brenda Boswell who are producing, compiling and researching the series. Former music journalist Bill Carpenter is assisting in song selection and liner notes annotation for the series. Warner Brothers Records acquired the historic Word Records label and catalogue in 2002. Founded in 1951 by Texan Jarrell F. McCracken in Waco, Word became the leading seller of religious recordings with a string of successful Billy Graham sermonette LPs in the 1950s. In 1974 the label was sold to ABC Television. In 1992 it was sold to Thomas Nelson Publishers and moved to Nashville. By 1997 it was sold to Gaylord Entertainment before the Warner acquisition in 2002. In the 1970s the label launched the Myrrh imprint to promote contemporary Christian music and briefly had a black gospel subsidiary called Rejoice in the 1980s.