DETROIT; Saturday May 1, Verizon Wireless hosted the remarkably informative Songwriters and Producers workshop at Grace Church on the city’s northwest side. The illustrious panel of speakers included music producers Rev. Rudolph Stanfield and Paul “PDA” Allen, along with songwriter and producer songwriter Carnell Murrell. The trio of accomplished gospel acts and industry expert Donna Harris talked in depth with audience members about the key elements involved in making a gospel hit. Moreover, they shared with audience participants true life applications about the nuts and bolts of the gospel music industry and discussed the subtleties and nuances of making gospel music classics. -roz edward
Why is gospel music significant in our lives and the African American culture?
Carnell Murrell: “Gospel music keeps us in tune with God and it gives us a way out. What the world has to offer is not always healthy for us, but God’s word always is. It doesn’t matter when it comes over you, like you’re in the kitchen frying chicken and “Amazing Grace” may just come over you all of a sudden. Then you start thinking about your own life and “How sweet the sound,” and you remember the things you’ve dealt with in your life.
Donna Harris: “It’s significant in two perspectives. First of all for [African American] people it’s the vehicle that carries our message. … When you look at gospel music it’s a way of chronicling or carrying our story and our experiences. I believe its ultimate benefit to the world is that it is good news. It’s a way of 
carrying a message of hope to people who may find themselves in a place or a time of hopelessness. And gospel music can take on a variety of musical genres, from traditional to urban contemporary — there are a variety of ways to frame it.
Rudolph Stanfield, Jr.: The significance of gospel music is in its message and its ability to carry the spirit of God and the presence of God. We’re inspired by a lot of things and music is a universal language throughout the country and the world. It’s amazing how you can go and sing certain songs in other countries and not sing it in their native tongue, but yet they will respond because it reaches the heart and really gets to the soul of a person.
How do you keep gospel music relevant?
Stanfield: “What is relevant is the communion and the relationship that we have with God that allows us to take an old message with a new melody and make it relevant. It was good for my grandmother to hear James Cleveland’s “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired.” How do we make it relevant? The same message with a different group of singers called Mary Mary is expressed in the song “I Just Can’t give Up Now.” God make it relevant because he connects with the heart of the instrument that he’s using.”
Harris: “I believe that we don’t have to work to keep the music relevant; I believe God is doing that for us right now. We have to think about [gospel music’s] creation and how we feel about it as opposed to being forced into a 
place to seek him. As long as we have need to seek him and be in that relationship with God he gives us the relevant message. It’s when we’re beyond our problems and life is easy that we forget the importance of that message. But if you look around America and all of the things that confront our people – it keeps the music relevant.”
Murrell: “Because the world offers so much junk, our young people sometimes lose focus because the world says what they like to hear. But how we keep God’s music relevant is by keeping it in front of you, so sometimes we have to break the music down … and kind of do some beats that the kids like and at the same time give them strong lyrical content to help encourage them.”
