(The Reverend Dr. James Edward Cleveland was a gospel sing...)
The Reverend Dr. James Edward Cleveland was a gospel singer, musician, and composer. Known as the King of Gospel music, Cleveland was a driving force behind the creation of the modern gospel sound.
(Reverend James Cleveland brought a daring style of hard g...)
Reverend James Cleveland brought a daring style of hard gospel, jazz and pop music influences to mass arrangements. Known as the "King of Gospel", his pioneering sound began as a teenager when he strained his vocal chords leaving a distinctive gravelly voice that became his signature in his later years. In his long career he released Peace Be Still in the 1960s, a record which became the first gospel LP to sell over 50,000 albums, a feat unheard of back then. Reverend Cleveland will forever be remembered as one of the world's foremost leaders and pioneers of gospel music.
James Cleveland combined his talents as minister, singer, composer, and philanthropist, known as the King of Gospel music.
Background
He was born in 1932 Chicago, Illinois, United States. He was the son of hard-working, God-fearing parents.
His grandmother introduced him to Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church, where the budding musician was influenced by choir director Thomas A. Dorsey.
Career
By the time he was a teenager, Cleveland was singing with a neighborhood group, the Thorn Gospel Crusaders. And once the group began featuring Cleveland's compositions, the artist found himself piquing the interest of prominent gospel talents. In 1948 Cleveland's "Grace Is Sufficient, " performed at a Baptist convention, prompted Roberta Martin to begin publishing the new composer's work.
The next decade proved a productive one for Cleveland. He made his recording debut on the Apollo label in 1950, singing "Oh What a Time" with the Gospelaires. He composed songs for Roberta Martin, including "Stand By Me, " "Saved, " and "He's Using Me. " He worked frequently with the Caravans, first establishing himself as a superlative gospel arranger, then emerging as a singer-the Caravans scored their earliest hits, in fact, with Cleveland as lead vocalist on such tunes as "Old Time Religion" and "Solid Rock. " And he founded the first of his own groups, the Gospel Chimes, which helped showcase his talents as composer, arranger, and singer.
By 1960 Cleveland, who had incorporated blues riffs and what Heilbut described as "sheer funkiness" in his work, had become associated with a new tenor in gospel music. That year "The Love of God, " a song he recorded with Detroit's Voices of Tabernacle choir, was a sensation, and its success helped Cleveland secure a recording contract with Savoy Records, for whom he recorded more than sixty albums. The artist passed another milestone with Savoy's 1963 release Peace Be Still. A recording pairing Cleveland with the Angelic Choir of Nutley, New Jersey, the album, which held a spot on the gospel charts for more than fifteen years, has sold more than one million copies, an almost unheard of achievement for a gospel recording.
During the 1960 Cleveland also formed the James Cleveland Singers, gradually built an international reputation, and became one of the best paid of the gospel music entertainers. And although two of Cleveland's former pupils - Aretha Franklin and Billy Preston - went on to achieve celebrity status, the master himself declined to expand his audience by moving into secular music, and instead chose to devote himself strictly to gospel.
Indeed, in the early sixties Cleveland became a minister and served Los Angeles's New Greater Harvest Baptist Church as pastor until he was able to build his own Cornerstone Institutional Baptist Church in 1970. For him, gospel music and gospel teaching were inseparable - different mediums conveying the same message.
For Cleveland, gospel music was so vital that in 1968 he organized the first Gospel Music Workshop of America. Designed both to help preserve the gospel tradition and to feature new talent, the workshop has grown to include more than five hundred thousand members representing almost every state. This was the best way, in the artist's opinion, to assure that gospel's legacy continues.
Cleveland died of heart failure on February 9, 1991, in Los Angeles, California. He had not been able to sing for a year before his death due to respiratory ailments.
Quotations:
As he explained to Ed Ochs in an interview for Billboard, gospel is not only "a music, but . .. a representation of a religious thinking. Gospel singing is the counterpart of gospel teaching. .. . It's an art form, true enough, but it represents an idea, a thought, a trend. "
"My biggest ambition is to build a school somewhere in America, where we can teach and house our convention, " Cleveland told Village Voice interviewer David Jackson.
Connections
In October 1991, music producer Andre M. Cleveland (then-aged 34) filed suit against James Cleveland's estate claiming to be Cleveland's adopted son.
Also in October 1991, Jean Ervin, a member of the Cleveland-founded Cornerstone Institutional Baptist Church, claimed that she was the mother of Cleveland's only biological child, daughter LaShone Cleveland (b. 1965).