HELENA-WEST HELENA – Darrell McFadden & The Disciples and The Pilgrim Jubilees also to appear at May 26 event Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductee Dottie Peoples will headline the seventh edition of the Arkansas Delta Family Gospel Fest, slated Saturday, May 26, at the Cherry Street Pavilion in historic downtown Helena-West Helena.

The festival, a production of the Delta Cultural Center’s Delta Music Documentation Project, feature live musical performances throughout the day and evening by national, regional, and local gospel acts. Also slated to appear are Darrell McFadden & The Disciples, The Pilgrim Jubilees, Billy River & The Angelic Voices, and Kevin Davidson & The Voices.

In addition, performances are also planned by The Selvy Singers, The Myles Family, The Sons of Wonder, God’s Harmony, Leomia Boyd & Praise, Jerusalem, Grace & Gravity, Vision, The Lord’s Creation, Gloryland Choir, Angie Pretlow, The District Two Choir, Daniel “Slick” Ballinger, Beverly Trice & New Life, The Hughes Singers, Promise, North Mississippi Jurisdictional Orchestra, West Helena Baptist Drama Team, and the West Helena Baptist Youth Choir.

Admission is free of charge. Music begins at 10 a.m. and continues until midnight.

Dottie Peoples, a 2003 inductee into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, was born in Dayton, Ohio, but learned much about gospel music in the front pew with her grandmother on summer visits to Alabama. It was then that she began her dreams of being one of those rare legendary singers of the music she loved. “I wanna be like Mahalia Jackson,” she would proclaim to her grandmother.

She would hone her skills in church and high school choir, and toured with Dorothy Norwood and Shirley Caesar soon after graduation. Later, she joined a jazz ensemble led by organist Richard “Groove” Holmes. After joining Atlanta’s Salem Baptist Church, Peoples developed and managed the congregation’s Church Door Records on which she recorded her earliest releases.

Not long after she began hosting, directing, and producing a showcase gospel program for radio station WAOK, Peoples’ signed to Atlanta International Records in 1991 where her career began in earnest. Her debut there, “Live at Salem Baptist Church,” was rewarded with her first Stellar Award nomination for Best Female Solo Performance. In 1994, her “On Time God” album reached Number One on the gospel charts and won the Stellar Awards for album, song, female vocalist, and choir of the year. Her “Count on God” album debuted in 1996 at Number Four on the charts and would eventually be named Gospel Album of the Year by the Dove Awards, the Soul Train Awards, the Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA), and the National Association of Independent Record Distributors.

Again in 2000, her “God Can & God Will” was a Dove Award winner for Traditional Gospel Album of the Year. In 2006, she was named Traditional Female Artist of the Year at the Stellar Awards. Peoples is also a three-time Grammy nominee.

Her most popular songs include “Testify,” “Pure Love,” “It’s So Hard to Get Along,” “He’s an On Time God,” “God Can,” “He Is Concerned,” “What Kind of Love Is This,” “Closet Religion,” “Get Your House in Order,” and “We Shall Be Changed.”

Peoples also appeared in the touring stage play, “What Men Don’t Tell.”

Darrell McFadden and the Disciples mine their own rich vein of gospel quartet music – or as they prefer to call it, “Modern Classic Quartet” music. It is a sound that reflects performers influenced by the secular sounds of the Temptations, as well as the legendary gospel acts like Willie Banks & The Messengers and the Gospel Keynotes.

McFadden has been singing solos in the church since he was 11. Today the pastor of Galilean Deliverance Temple in New York’s Bronx, McFadden was born and raised in Brooklyn and spent every summer of his youth with relatives in rural South Carolina, gaining an appreciation of gospel’s music in both the North and South. After high school, he formed the Golden Sons in Brooklyn, working constantly and building the group’s reputation throughout the New York area, eventually releasing four small label albums. Frustrated by members’ resistance to the sacrifices of taking the group to a national audience, he left the Golden Sons and formed Darrell McFadden & The Disciples in 1992. The group followed McFadden’s principles of constant touring, gaining a growing following up and down the East Coast. After five independent projects, they signed to EMI Gospel.

Other core members Gene People and Spanky Williams have divided their time for several years, working with mainstream R&B act Men of Vision and becoming part of the production team of hit-making producer Teddy Riley. Today, McFadden, People, and Williams meld the classic sounds of gospel quartets with contemporary production skills and a love of ‘60s soul, creating the music that made 2006’s “I’ve Got a Right” one of the top gospel albums of the year.

Chicago’s Pilgrim Jubilees trace their origins back to 1934 in Houston, Mississippi, when Elgie Graham and Willie Johnson formed a duet. When three more members were added in the mid-1940s, the Pilgrim Jubilees were born. Membership changed when the Graham family moved to Chicago in 1950; Elgie Graham reorganized the Jubilees to include Major Roberson, Kenneth Madden, and his brothers, Cleve and Clay Graham. In 1955, Elgie Graham bowed out of the group, but encouraged the other members to continue the Jubilees – they have to this day. Madden would depart in the 1960s and Ben Chandler came aboard in 1970. All of the other core members have remained aboard.

The Jubes – as they are known to loyal fans – gained national recognition and a gold record with the gospel classic “Stretch Out” more than 40 years ago. Other hits would include “Rich Man, Poor Man,” “I’m Happy With Jesus Alone,” “Whensoever I Pray,” “Put Your Trust in Jesus,” and “I’m Glad You Looked My Way.” Signing with Malaco Records in 1987, the Jubes would continue to garner airplay and new fans with such acclaimed releases as “Gospel Roots,” “Back to Basics,” “Family Affair,” “I’m Getting Better All the Time,” and “In Revival.”

Today, the Jubes continue to perform on stages from the Kennedy Center to the Apollo Theatre. Favorites at major festival, the Pilgrim Jubilees gospel sound regularly touches fans from the Bahamas to New Orleans’ Jazz & Heritage Festival.

As in past years, the DCC continues to provide opportunities for area performers to participate in the Arkansas Delta Family Gospel Festival. A limited number of slots for performers remain and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Also, non-profit church groups and organizations are invited to take advantage of the large audiences the festival draws by establishing food vending operations during the event -- at no charge for concession space.

For more information, interested persons can contact the Delta Cultural Center at (870) 338-4350 or (800) 358-0972.

The Delta Cultural Center shares the vision of all seven agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage – to preserve and promote Arkansas heritage as a source of pride and satisfaction. Other agencies within the department are the Historic Arkansas Museum, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the Arkansas Arts Council, and the Natural Heritage Commission.

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