He joined the chorus at Jackson High School which provided him the opportunity to perform.

He formed a group called “The Debonairs” and he appeared in shows throughout South Florida.

As Joe became an adult, he was featured in different professional groups and bands before deciding to go back to his calling. He has released R & B singles and Christmas music.

He has kept his passion of writing and singing and is always taking of the moments’ inspiration.

“It does not take great eloquence when speaking about Christ.

I’ll spread His Word in song forever.” Joe Russell “Russell’s music has never been confined to any one artistic genre”.

Joe Russell is excited about his debut CD, “I Give Him All The Praise.”

He wrote all of the songs on this CD except the remake of his latest single release, “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now.” He emphasizes that he wants to bring Jesus Christ back to the forefront, to the center of ministry.

STAY TUNED FOR JOE RUSSELL’S NEW MOTHERS DAY RELEASE FOR 2011. “GOD THANKS FOR MY MAMA” AND FUTURE RELEASES. CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE: WWW.JOERUSSELLMUSIC.COM AND BE SPIRITUALLY MOVED TO MAKE A CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE AND WALK WITH JESUS.

“Joe Russell’s music is inspiring, current sounding and deserves serious attention.” …LMP.

“Russell’s music has never been confined to any one artistic genre”.

“Joe believes that nothing is impossible to those who believe, and that nothing is unattainable with God in your life”.

“It does not take great eloquence when speaking about Christ. I’ll spread His Word in song forever.” .. Joe Russell

“Joe believes that nothing is impossible to those who believe, and that nothing is unattainable with God in your life”.

Joe Russell’s music is inspiring, current sounding and deserves serious attention.” …LMP.

Learn more at http://www.joerussellmusic.com

Chance Records

(Nashville, TN) Grammy Award winner Beverly Crawford has been requested to perform her smash hit single “It’s About Time For A Miracle!” at the BMI 12th Annual Trailblazers of Gospel Music Awards Luncheon honoring gospel legends Shirley Caesar and Commissioned.

The invitation-only event on January 14th at Rocketown in Nashville, held one day before the 26th Annual Stellar Awards, welcomes Gospel music’s premier artists, songwriters, and record executives in recognizing Gospel music legends and pioneers.

About the Honorees:
For 17 years, six-member group Commissioned spread the gospel with an emboldened sense of purpose and fierce musical skill. The group was co-founded in 1982 by Fred Hammond, along with Michael Brooks, Karl Reid, Keith Stanton, Mitchell Jones & Michael Williams. As the lineup changed, standout members included Marvin Sapp & others. Commissioned parted ways in 1999, but their music remains a bold influence of contemporary gospel stars & a beloved favorite of fans around the world.

Pastor Shirley Caesar’s work with the Caravans first introduced her to large audiences. During her time with the legendary group, she preached her first sermon and delivered lead vocals on Gospel songs such as “I Won’t Be Back” and “No Coward Soldiers”. As a solo artist, Caesar embraced contemporary production & secular rhythms like r&b and disco. As a result, she climbed pop, r&b and Gospel charts. In addition to a stunning 11 Grammys, Pastor Caesar has earned 18 Dove Awards & 14 Stellar Awards. Currently, she is the Sr. Pastor of Mt. Calvary Word of Faith in Raleigh, NC.

About Beverly Crawford:
JDI Records artist Beverly Crawford is universally recognized as one of the premier vocalists in the world! With a legion of ardent fans including Fantasia, President Obama, Natalie Cole, Patti LaBelle, etc, Beverly Crawford’s new CD Live from Los Angeles – Vol. 2 is garnering rave reviews all over the country!

The #1 Most Added Song at Radio (Billboard), “It’s About Time For A Miracle!” is the follow-up to Beverly’s #1 chart-topper “He’s Done Enough”, which dominated the Billboard Charts for over 70+ weeks & garnered 7 Stellar Award nods including CD of the Year, Artist of the Year, etc.

About BMI:
Broadcast Music Inc (BMI) is an American performing right organization that represents more than 475,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in all genres of music and more than 6.5 million works. BMI has represented the most popular and beloved music from around the world for 70 years and collects license fees from businesses that use music, which it then distributes as royalties to the musical creators and copyright owners it represents.

Recording artist, songwriter, worship leader and author David Adesokan (pronounced ah-DAY-shu-konn) will release his debut album, Thirsty, on the Wellspring Music label on August 24, 2010. The record is the next step in the continuing outreach ministry of the multi-faceted, Houston based Christian artist.Thirsty consists of 12 worship tracks that passionately express the desire to seek a closer relationship with the Lord. Under a variety of musical styles ranging from contemporary gospel with “The Most High/Awesome God” to the Caribbean Gospel sounds of “Hallelujah”, Adesokan fills out his songs with lyrics inspired by his times in direct personal worship and study of God’s word. It’s an album that echoes the songwriter’s personal directive to use his music to call the Church back to a place of intimacy in worship.
“This is primarily a worship project,” Adesokan says, “and I want people to really take away a renewed thirst and desire for more of God and all that He has in store for us in His Presence.”Since beginning to sing in his church choir at the age of 11 and learning to play the piano a few years later, Adesokan has spent the past 14 years serving in various musical capacities; as a Music Director, Minister of Music, musician, and Youth Ministry volunteer at various cross-cultural denominations. Releasing his debut album is his way of spreading his musical worship of God to a wider audience.As for what Adesokan wants listeners to take from his album, he puts it best himself: ”It would really be [for listeners] to discover or rediscover a passion, renewed hunger and desire for intimate and genuine worship to the Almighty God, even if they never remembered my name! I equally desire that a dam would break on their inside, and like David in Psalm 42, that they would thirst for more, and more of God again.”
Read More:

Former NFL coach and NBC’s Football Night in America analyst Tony Dungy is embarking on a book and media tour this week to promote the release of his third book with Tyndale House Publishers.
The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently is Dungy’s follow-up to Uncommon and Quiet Strength.In The Mentor Leader, co-written with Nathan Whitaker, Dungy makes a case for the importance of mentoring as a tool for transformation–both in individuals and teams.
Starting tomorrow, Dungy embarks on a nine-day book and media tour, visiting stores in New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Georgia and Florida. The tour includes 18 book signings, including several in Christian bookstores.
Click here to read morehttp://www.christianretailing.com/index.php/newsletter/latest-etailing/21776-tony-dungy-on-mentor-tour
SOURCE: Christian Retailing

“With everything that I’ve gone through, all my ups and downs, with people talking about me and saying that I would never make it because I had two kids, I was resting on God’s promise,” she said. “I’m hoping that people who listen to this CD will be uplifted and encouraged. I want them to realize that dreams do come true, so you should never give up on your dreams. When you get knocked down you get back up and just keep pressing through.”

“The Promise” is packed with inspiration, a message of faith, and encouragement says Crawley:

“The message in all my songs is that no matter what, no matter how down you are, there is hope right now-you are still blessed,” That message is also her personal testimony. “To go through the fire and, like the Scripture says, to come out pure as gold-that’s how I feel, that I’m pure as gold, like the light is just shining and everybody can see.”

Associate pastor Alex Kendrick, right, sets up a shot with photography director Bob Scott. Courageous is the fourth faith-based movie produced by Sherwood Baptist Church.

Like Hollywood films, they take on real-life issues in dramatic packages:

•A resentful white cop and his black partner struggle with race and fatherhood before taking a lesson in reconciliation from Oscar winner Lou Gossett Jr. in a cameo role. That’s The Grace Card, underwritten by an optometrist for his small church in Tennessee.

•An aimless 20-year-old, adventuring with his buddies in India, discovers the global horror of sex slavery and makes it his life-changing cause. That’s Not Today, backed by a California Quaker church.

•Cops facing rough times on the streets realize their real failures are at home — as fathers who don’t know, or don’t care, how to truly love their kids. That’s Courageous, the fourth film from Sherwood Baptist Church, which is so successful in its moviemaking ministry that it now coaches others.

“Movies are the stained-glass windows of the 21st century, the place to tell the Gospel story to people who may not read a Bible,” says Michael Catt, senior pastor of Sherwood in Albany, Ga.

Click here to read more

Source: USA Today | Cathy Lynn Grossman

Al Harris, at right above, with Kevin Soto. The two childhood friends plan to release a Christian rap album in August.

The cornerback is Al Harris. He wears No. 31 for the Green Bay Packers. The ex-convict is Kevin Soto. He wore No. 693430 in the Florida Department of Corrections.

They met 25 years ago, two boys from the same neighborhood north of Miami, bonded by break dancing and back flips and music above all else. That was before Harris went to the N.F.L., before Soto went to prison, before either man had heard of Christian rap.

“All these years, music kept coming up, kept bringing us together,” Harris, 35, said. “It always came back to music, no matter what we did, or where we went.”

In August, Harris and Soto will release a Christian rap album, the culmination of two lives that veered in opposite directions and converged again recently.

The cornerback wore shoulder pads for the first time at age 2, already certain his future was in football. The local boys’ club produced a stunning number of elite athletes, including the N.B.A. guard Eddie Jones and the seven players from Harris’s Blanche Ely High School teams who have played in the N.F.L.

The ex-convict preferred hip-hop. Soto owned one of the first portable stereos in the neighborhood, and he wrote rhymes about street life and Burger King commercials and rapped over the latest beats.

The boys rode the same bus to different schools, with Soto three years older. They engaged in enough adolescent mischief — lobbing batteries at buses, breaking car windows with rocks — that the bus driver separated them by at least two rows, they said.

Soto protected Harris as if he were his brother, wary of the dangers. Their hometown once consisted entirely of fields; beans, peppers, squash and tomatoes lined the horizon. Eventually it filled with families, lower and middle class.

Then came crack cocaine, which produced the usual byproducts: gangs, drugs and crime. The worst centered in Grace Apartments, at the dead end of a one-way street. Soto lived there for years, his favorite memory the night when police officers, clad in helmets and carrying shields, refused to advance beyond a certain point.

“When they tore down those projects, people were upset,” Soto said. “And I was one of them. To a juvenile delinquent, that was like Disney World.”

Even while their paths diverged, the cornerback kept tabs on his friend. Harris heard that Soto carried a gun and experimented with marijuana and cocaine. Harris’s father, Johnny, worked at the high school and noticed Soto driving stolen cars.

“Your boy, he’s heading down the wrong path,” he told his son.

Florida court records show what happened: felony arrests for aggravated assault with a firearm, battery, cocaine possession, robbery with a deadly weapon and marijuana distribution, all between 1990 and 1996.

Soto, 38, estimated he was picked up by the police more than 100 times. Eventually he served three terms in prison, where he said he felt more comfortable than outside.

He outlined his criminal past with detail but not emotion. He stashed drugs in lockers and went high to school, eventually being kicked out. He hid several stolen cars around the neighborhood. He escaped from juvenile detention. On and on it went.

A typical story: “The cops came to the house, and I ran out back. I jumped off a seven-story balcony and broke my kneecap. I have a full cast on my leg. I’m on the run from the police. My wife is tired. I can’t go back home. And I’m still going out trying to keep my drug spot going.”

The ex-convict felt abandoned and rejected by the father he never knew. In Johnny Harris, Soto saw the effect of parental influence. Johnny Harris never cared how many friends his son hosted. Their house sometimes filled with 20 children, but all under his watch.

The cornerback went to junior college, then boosted his N.F.L. stock at Texas A.&M.-Kingsville. Harris started 175 straight games with Philadelphia and Green Bay and became a Pro Bowl regular.

There were chance meetings with the ex-convict over the years, at gas stations or neighborhood haunts. Sometimes, Soto looked muscular, buffed by prison workouts.

After Harris spent 1997 on Tampa Bay’s practice squad, he visited a music studio back home, and recognized Soto’s voice inside the booth as Soto rapped with the lights off. Afterward, Harris asked Soto if he would consider a career in music.

Click here to continue reading.
SOURCE: The New York Times
Greg Bishop

MEDFORD, N.Y. – In Is She Dead Yet? The Story of How a Woman Struggled to Escape Domestic Violence and Build a New Life (published by AuthorHouse), author Lawanna Lynn Campbell provides a first-person account of living with domestic violence. She tells of a marriage filled with abuse, infidelity
and drug and alcohol abuse. This new memoir follows Campbell through her escape and includes tools and resources that other women can use to break the cycle of abuse.

Growing up with an alcoholic parent, Campbell walked on eggshells and learned to be submissive and codependent, seeking comfort and solace in Christianity and marrying at an early age. On the outside, Campbell and her husband were the perfect couple. But for nearly 23 years, she secretly endured domestic violence at the hands of her husband, who was also a business owner and church leader. Is She Dead Yet? describes the roller coaster ride of intense and violent episodes of abuse, followed by
periods of normalcy. Campbell narrates how she moved in and out of the family home as she struggled to cope with her husband’s extramarital affairs, drug and alcohol use and financial ruin. Learn what she did right, what she did wrong, the warning signs of domestic abuse and the five deadly marriage dealbreakers. Walk with her as she takes matters into her own hands and gets the legal, therapeutic and spiritual help needed to make a new life for herself.

This poignant, true story takes readers on a journey from the pulpit to the prison cell as Campbell strives to free herself from a life of pain, shame and guilt. Find out if she keeps the faith, or if she turns away from God as she faces her most devastating challenge of all.

About the Author
Lawanna Lynn Campbell is a survivor of domestic abuse. She was born in Philadelphia and attended Philadelphia public schools. Campbell graduated from Dobbins Area Vocational Technical School in 1975, ranking third in a class of more than 500 students, and also attended Temple University for a short time. She has worked in various secretarial, administrative and office supervisory positions and is currently an executive legal assistant at a major staffing company. Campbell’s lively and vibrant storytelling skills make her a sought after speaker and presenter. She has three adult children, is engaged and resides on Long Island in New York. Visit her online at: isshedeadyet.com.

AuthorHouse is the premier publishing house for emerging authors and new voices in literature. For a complimentary copy of this book for review, members of the media can contact the AuthorHouse Promotional Services Department by calling 888-728-8467 o emailing pressreleases@authorhouse.com. (When requesting a review copy, please provide a street address.)

Contact Information:
Lawanna Lynn Campbell
Tel: (631) 698-2552
Email: lawanna37@hotmail.com

“I’m extremely grateful and thankful to everyone who supported this CD. My prayer is that, through my music, people are able to see their own lives and gain a sense of strength, hope and faith,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to getting out there and ministering the new body of work, which I hope will resonate with listeners who were with me on my first CD, as well as connect with new ones.”

Like many artists’ work, every track on his album is a reflection of who he is and the experiences of his life. With uplifting, comforting lyrics, Wood’s music is bound to see no. 1

Since the release of her newest album “Won’t Let Go” Marjané has received another (1st round) nomination for a 2010 Stellar Award for Contemporary Female Vocalist of the Year, London’s Mp3 Music Award Nomination, and 5 Ensound Music Award Nominations.

Accompanying Gospel great Dr. Bobby Jones and the Nashville Super Choir for the 2010 BET Celebration of Gospel and opening for Gospel great Karen Clark Sheard, Marjané is blazing the trail with her current hit bound singles “This Joy” & Get Your Breakthrough. Marjané is one you’re sure to love.

See The Video Below:

Visit www.youtube.com/jjanemusic for Official “Get Your Breakthrough” Video

See this video on gospeltube.com

To Visit Artist Official Website visit www.marjanemusic.com

For booking information send an email to info@marjanemusic.com