Are You a Believer?

Ray Curenton explores finding heaven on earth on his new gospel-adjacent release.

Many of you may not know that I began my public path as a recording artist. I made three albums (the last of which was released a decade ago) and then shifted into a new chapter as a music historian and archivist. I met Ray Curenton at the tail end of my life as a musician. He was releasing his debut album, Cardiac Arrest, and I was struck by the commonalities in intention between his album and my 2004 debut, Love Is On My Mind.

We started writing songs together for my last album, The Baton: 1985. His knack for writing hooks, interesting melodies and thoughtful lyrics amazed me and I got to witness the creation of his 2014 opus, Backslider. It was another project full of ear candy and deep introspection about the matters of the heart and spirit. Today, we’d call it a record about deconstruction.

We married the same year that Backslider came out and life took over. By the time we moved back to Nashville in 2019, we’d moved five times and those years away had been consumed by jobs and academic pursuits. We returned to Nashville determined to make music a priority again, but weren’t sure how. Jobs and the long commute into town seemed to consume every day, but fate intervened.

The pandemic, for our house, was a blessing. We gained two hours back when our work commutes ended. Ray took that time to write songs. These songs reflected a life on the other side of Backslider. They reflected the reconstruction of his faith and the desire for a better life in the here and now. Heaven on earth.

The twelve new songs, offset with four interludes, comprise his brand new release, Believer: The Last Shall Be The First, which released on Friday.

Being able to participate in making music again, for me, was a blessing. I co-wrote three of them (“Stars,” which features a gorgeous string arrangement by Women’s Music icon Mary Watkins, and the album’s first single, “Make It With Me”), co-produced the vocals on a good percentage of the project and sang backgrounds with Ray’s mom and sister on a few tunes.

It is already SoulTracks.com’s Album of the Month. They wrote, “When an album sounds good, it is a treat. But when it sounds uniquely good, then that's something to cherish.” From the funk gospel of “Better Place” to the anthemic “Make It With Me,” of which the Journal of Gospel Music noted that “he growls and worries notes like a street-corner evangelist,” Believer is a tour de force of genres, bridging gospel with folk, rock, pop and all the good things that BeBe and CeCe Winans’ late 80s/early 90s recordings made listeners feel. Lovers of that era will especially love Ray’s duet with his sister, Kweli Buckner, “Whole (Heal Me).”

There is a physical CD which includes a 28-page booklet packed with the album’s lyrics, photos and a manifesto, which you can order here. Streaming links for all platforms can be found here.

Renowned music critic Craig Seymour (be sure to subscribe to his Substack!) interviewed Ray this weekend for SoulMusic.com and their conversation is one you don’t want to miss. They discuss the lyrical and musical foundations of the album, what being a ‘believer’ means, and the ways in which the album is a celebration of bringing all of one’s self to the table—not just a fragment.

I hope you all will take the time to listen to Believer, an album that relays gospel music’s possibilities in 2023.

I’ll see you all again next week!

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