Opening Up The VHS Archive
Expanding #GodsMusicIsMyLife to include some of the rarities from my VHS archive that dates back to 1984.
When I was nine years old in 1984, my grandparents got cable and a VCR for the first time. They bought me two blank VHS tapes so that I could start recording things that I might want to re-watch. As I was limited to Christian television based on our household restrictions, my recordings were typically a Christian music video show called Sound Effects on the PTL Network or when my favorite artists appeared on the big three Christian networks, CBN, TBN and PTL. As the eighties progressed and BET was added to our cable package, I discovered Bobby Jones Gospel.
Through the early 2000s this continued. I moved around the country multiple times hauling my bins of VHS tapes and, in 2010, I finally started digitizing footage. I uploaded quite a bit from my Bobby Jones Gospel tapes to YouTube that now lives on many other people’s accounts! After uploading a clip featuring one departed gospel legend who has a, shall we say, obsessed family member, my account was targeted and I took all of my footage down. With the encouragement of a few fellow archivists (especially Milik Kashad of the fabulous Black Music Archive), I decided to begin sharing footage again a few weeks ago after more than a decade.
I wanted to share some of the brand new uploads with you here—several of them by artists I’ve written features about—and point you to the YouTube channel. You can subscribe here and peruse the growing treasure trove of incredible performances.
If you want to contribute to the work that is happening here, I encourage you to either become a paid subscriber or contribute to the GoFundMe that I’ve set up for the New York Community Choir book! I am grateful for your support!
I was in the audience at this 1994 Youth Explosion taping for Bobby Jones Gospel. Stephanie Mills was there promoting her brand new Donald Lawrence-produced gospel album, Personal Inspirations. Dr. Jones, with his special gift of cultivating once-in-a-lifetime collaborations, brought Mills together with Ann Nesby who was, at the time, still with the Sounds of Blackness.
When Walter Hawkins and the Love Center Choir released Love Alive V in 1998, they did a promotional stop at a Bobby Jones Gospel taping at the Epcot Center. The big surprise was that Tramaine joined them for this mind-blowing eleven-minute version of “It’s Right and Good,” one of her features on that project. If you’re new to the newsletter, don’t miss my feature on Tramaine’s 1985 crossover smash, “Fall Down.”
Johnny Whittaker should be regarded as one of the greatest gospel vocalists of all time. Shortly before his death in 1997, a compilation of his recordings with the Twenty-First Century Singers was released, but people saw him on television nearly weekly for a large part of the eighties when he joined Dr. Bobby Jones’ New Life. This clip with Robin Johnson, another one of the Twenty-First Century Singers who joined New Life, showcases the voice, showmanship and beauty that simply was Johnny Whittaker. My feature on this homegrown Nashville talent is one that I’m most proud of. Take a listen to Johnny and Robin here and then read! I promise you’ll want to know more about him!