Wednesday, July 11, 2007


Jul. 11, 2007 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) --
Organizing the 350-person choir for tonight's NAACP gospel extravaganza was almost a piece of cake for Dorgan Needom -- almost.

The 69-year-old Detroiter has been involved with gospel music for more than 50 years. In his role as minister of music for the Unity Baptist Church, and in his high-profile national roles for organizations such as the Progressive Baptist convention and the National Baptist convention, he's been called to pull together 750 voices for national gospel-music events.

Tonight at Wayne Hall at Cobo Center, he'll lead hundreds of Detroiters from various denominations at the Gospel Extravaganza, a cornerstone entertainment event at the 98th NAACP annual convention.

More than 30 Detroit-area churches are represented, including Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, Russell Street Baptist Church, Greater New Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church and Oak Grove African Methodist Episcopal Church.

'The NAACP is about people coming together and rising above circumstances and in the music you don't see denominational lines. You don't see color. All you hear is a glorious song of praise and that's what music should be about,' says Detroiter Rose Harvey, a 73-year-old member of the mass choir. 'You learn a lot about people. We all react differently according to our backgrounds, but to see all of the differences and to see them unified by the end of a song, it's a glorious experience. I go for that purpose. It's uplifting. It's joyful. The music lifts, it soars. I get emotional, but it's worth it.'

It's that reason, that collective love of spiritual music, that makes it easier for Needom to put the choir together.

His role is to gather the musicians, singers and develop the repertoire for the performance.

He has a system that's helped make him an ace at taking various voices from many different churches and making them sound as one.

'I maintain a database of choir members who participate in these types of events, so that when I'm getting ready (OTCBB:GTRY) for another event I can call on them as the core group,' he says. Since the end of March, the choir has been preparing its 2-hour concert, which will feature gospel singer and former Detroiter CeCe Winans. The choir will sing spirituals, anthems and gospel standards, celebrating the marriage that the civil rights organization and gospel music have shared since its inception. 'Gospel music is the good news of the church. It's the good news of Jesus Christ. Gospel music offers the message of hope and in these very troubled, troubled times in which we've lived, we need to be inspired and we need to be uplifted. People need to be motivated and they need to be seeking inspiration from their musical experience,' Needom says. 'The NAACP is a national civil rights organization which has a direct link and correlation with the church. And so gospel music which emanates from the church is certainly relative to the NAACP and the civil rights struggles.'

Tonight's gospel performance also will have an abundance of local flavor.

Needom, the musical coordinator, says that a good number of the songs to be performed at tonight's event were crafted by Detroit composers, including 'For By Grace Are Ye Saved' by Bishop Andre Woods, 'New World' by his brother, Earnest Needom, and an arrangement by the late Harold Smith, 'Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah.'

That's more than fitting, considering Detroit's rich, gospel music history. This area is responsible for birthing and polishing some of the best recorded gospel music of all time.

'We feel like we have some of the most talented people in this area, especially in this field of music,' says Robert Lewis Nix, assistant director of the NAACP choir and minister of music of Greater New Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in Detroit. 'In gospel music we have some nationally known people from here. And since the convention is in Detroit, we just felt like we would use our local music and local talents to pull this off.'

The Winans family, the Clark family, the Moss family, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Fred Hammond and a host of other gospel singers, songwriters and music producers are from Detroit.

And then there are folks like Needom. He's held a national -- and in some cases international -- presence in gospel music for more than five decades. He began taking piano lessons when he was 5 years old and took over the musical ministry duties at his church at age 19, while he was a student at Wayne State University. He's also studied at the Detroit Institute of Musical Arts and the Detroit Conservatory of Music.

'He's nationally known,' Nix says. 'He's sort of the dean of directors here. He's the standard. He's been around a long time. I've known him for 42 years. We started off as young fellas. And we've worked together through the years. He sets the examples for other musicians and other directors and other ministers of music.'

Contact KELLEY L. CARTER at 313-222-8854 or  carter@freepress.com.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0048-18057617


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