Prayers Up! Legendary Gospel Singer Richard Smallwood Passes Away At 77

Richard Smallwood, a gospel singer and recording artist nominated eight instances for Grammy Awards, has died. He was 77. Smallwood’s songs had been carried out and recorded over time by artists corresponding to Whitney Houston, Stevie Marvel, Future’s Little one and Boyz II Males.

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Richard Smallwood’s Trigger Of Dying Revealed

Richard Smallwood died Tuesday (Dec. 30) of problems of kidney failure at a rehabilitation and nursing middle in Sandy Spring, Maryland, his consultant Invoice Carpenter introduced. Smallwood had well being points for a few years, and music gave him the power to endure, Carpenter stated in an interview.

“Richard was so devoted to music, and that was the factor that stored him alive all these years,” he stated. “Making music that made individuals really feel one thing is what made him wish to maintain respiration and maintain transferring and maintain residing.”

In recent times, delicate dementia and different well being points prevented Smallwood from recording music, and members of his Imaginative and prescient choir helped look after him.

A Gospel Legend Gone However Not Forgotten

As talked about, Whitney Houston introduced his music to movie by performing ‘I Love the Lord’ within the 1996 film ‘The Preacher’s Spouse,’ in accordance with Smallwood’s biography on the Gospel Music Corridor of Fame.

Richard Smallwood was born Nov. 30, 1948, in Atlanta and commenced to play piano by ear by the age of 5, per Associated Press.  By age 7, he was taking formal classes. He had shaped his personal gospel group by the point he was 11.

Later, Smallwood turned a music pioneer in a number of methods at Howard College in Washington, the place he graduated cum laude with a music diploma. He was a member of Howard’s first gospel group, the Celestials. He was additionally a founding member of the college’s gospel choir, in accordance with an obituary from his rep Carpenter.

After faculty, Smallwood taught music on the College of Maryland and went on to kind the Richard Smallwood Singers in 1977. He introduced a up to date sound to conventional gospel music.

He later shaped Imaginative and prescient, a big choir that fueled a few of his greatest gospel hits, together with ‘Whole Reward.’ The music turned a modern-day hymn that touched individuals from all sorts of backgrounds and walks of life, Carpenter stated by telephone Wednesday.

“You may go into any form of church — a Black church, a white church, a nondenominational church — and also you may hear that music,” he stated. “Someway it discovered its footing all through the entire Christian world. If he by no means wrote anything, that will have put him within the trendy hymn guide.”

Stevie Marvel carried out ‘Whole Reward’ on the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.’s son Dexter Scott King at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 10, 2024.

Chaka Khan Reacts To Richard’s Dying

Richard Smallwood “opened up my entire world of gospel music,” singer and songwriter Chaka Khan wrote on Fb after his dying.

“His music didn’t simply encourage me, it reworked me,” she stated. “He’s my favourite pianist, and his brilliance, spirit, and devotion to the music have formed generations, together with my very own journey.”

His legacy will dwell on “by way of each be aware and each soul he touched,” Khan stated. “I’m really wanting ahead to singing with you in heaven,” she stated.

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Related Press Jeff Martin contributed to this report by way of AP Newsroom.