Over the past three years, Genita Pugh has emerged as one of the gospel world’s brightest new stars. She’s turned in national Top 30 hits such as “You Made It Possible,” “Can’t Live” and “Holy to the Lamb” that made it all the way up to No. 12 on Billboard’s Hot Gospel Songs chart. Now, Pugh’s latest hit “God Can” enters next week’s Billboard Hot Gospel Songs chart at No. 30* with a bullet. It’s a song of faith with an infectious ’70s throwback R&B groove along the lines of The Gap Band’s classic “Outstanding.”
“The song challenges the believer to take an introspective look at their belief and faith in The Most High to provide, restore, create and deliver in the time of need,” said Terry Woods in a news release.
Woods wrote the song that was originally recorded by his brother, Jerard Woods, in 2007. “It also points us to the One who can be everything when all else has failed,” he said.
It’s a message that resonates well with Pugh who grew up in the church thanks to her grandmother, Willavry Glen, taking she and her siblings every Sunday when they were kids. She’s lived in Laurel, Miss., all of her life and spent years as a hairdresser before her husband, Donald Pugh, nudged her to launch a musical career. Although, she had always sung in the church choir, Pugh says, “I never had that confidence in myself to think my voice was good enough to ever be [national].”
Now that Pugh’s been successful on the national scene and released two CDs, including her current Top 10 project, “My Purpose” (Eternity Records), Pugh is a testament to the idea that God can do anything and make dreams manifest. “My prayer has not been for me to be famous, not for me to be rich nor be this great star,” she says. ”My prayer has been that people’s lives will be changed and that somebody will be saved, healed, delivered, restored and renewed.”