atlanta – Mitch's Muse

Keith Williams

Keith Williams, EPM Music Group recording artist and senior vice president, has left his post as director of Music and Arts at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga., where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor at the height of the ’60s Civil Rights Movement. His final service there took place on Easter Sunday.

“This was not a sudden decision,” says Williams in a news release, who will continue to live and work in the Atlanta area. “We’ve been planning this transition for months so that I can focus on my new duties as an executive with EPM Music Group and also so that I can finish my CD and fulfill the call I have to the national musical arena.”

Williams has been juggling many roles over the past year with his church duties, helping push Earnest Pugh’s smash hit “I Need Your Glory” to No. 1 on Billboard’s Gospel Chart and signing music veteran Chrystal Rucker as the first artist on EPM Music Group. At the same time, Williams has been sorting through songs and writing tunes for his August 14 sophomore CD release “Introducing Keith Williams.”

Williams is a classically trained pianist and vocalist. He’s spent the last two decades as a worship leader at prestigious churches across the United States such as Ebenezer A.M.E. Church in Fort Washington, Maryland, and the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Williams’ style is a cross between the legendary Douglas Miller’s nearly operatic baritone and John Stoddard’s polished notes. Over the years, Williams has written songs for Jennifer Holliday, Dottie Peoples, Vanessa Armstrong and Earnest Pugh. His debut CD, “…& Again I Say Rejoice,” appeared in 2008. For more information, go to www.epmmusicgroup.com

What an incredible worship experience! Gospel vocalist Lucinda Moore draws in listeners with her sophomore CD “Blessed, Broken, & Given” (Tyscot Records). Moore doesn’t just project heartfelt praise; she is a living testimony that God can mend broken hearts. Once the listener starts to tune in to the songs on this CD, there is the realization that not about Moore, but it’s about giving praise and honor to God.
However, on the 15-track compact disc, Moore shares her story through inspiring ballads regarding deliverance from the pain of her past — childhood abuse, depression over her father’s death and a failed 16-year marriage to someone she says “never loved me.” Moore says of the first single “Blessed, Broken & Given”: “This is my testimony of what God did for me. He’s blessed me with a voice, but he had to break some things in me in order for me to be given to the nation.” She penned the song as she was going through a divorce.
“I’m doing it to help other people come out of what they are coming out of,” Moore said in a news release. “You don’t have to be unhappy and sit in abuse. This is the happiest time of my adult life.”
Moore is accompanied by the Elizabeth Baptist Church Mass Choir of Atlanta, Ga., background vocalists Donica Johnson, Natasha Cobbs, Claudius Craig, Trevon Davis, Tesha Lockley and Kim Edwards, as well as a host of musicians and band leader Natalie Ragins.
Stand-out track: “There’s a River.” There is a healing in the anointing, and this song makes you want to replay it. The “Bishop’s Prayer” (Dr. Kevin A. Williams) follows, continuing the worship experience.

Editor’s note: Review CD supplied by Capital Entertainment.