Some songs aren’t simply sung — they’re held. They grow to be the soundtrack to sorrow, the language of gratitude, and the regular hand that lifts us when life will get onerous.
That legacy echoed by way of Capitol Hill on Wednesday (Jan. 14), when U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock honored gospel icon Richard Smallwood in a public ceremony that blended religion, music, and historical past.
Warnock joined Senator Tim Scott for the second, alongside the Howard College Gospel Choir and the Metropolitan Baptist Church Choir, honoring Smallwood’s life and work with a efficiency of his signature composition, “Whole Reward.” The choice adopted the introduction of a bipartisan Senate decision recognizing Smallwood’s contributions.
Warnock mirrored on Smallwood’s roots and attain, pointing to his deep ties to each Howard College and Metropolitan Baptist Church, and emphasised that, regardless of his towering affect, Smallwood remained a worshipper first, by no means somebody chasing recognition.
Warnock described him as “a musical genius and a large of the gospel music world.” He famous that Smallwood’s music has carried listeners by way of hardship, noting that his songs typically linger longer in reminiscence than sermons.
The tribute got here simply weeks after Smallwood’s demise at age 77 from problems associated to kidney failure.
Smallwood’s present revealed itself early. The kid prodigy was born in Atlanta in 1948 and raised in Washington, D.C., the place he started enjoying the piano at age 5. After incomes a music diploma from Howard College, he based the Richard Smallwood Singers within the late Seventies, later transitioning to the choir Imaginative and prescient within the Nineteen Nineties.
Smallwood’s legacy consists of eight Grammy nominations and a number of Dove and Stellar Awards. This recognition displays not solely technical brilliance but in addition religious resonance.
Whereas his sound is rooted in gospel custom, his attain extends far past it. Whitney Houston recorded his track “I Love the Lord” for The Preacher’s Spouse soundtrack. Future’s Little one included “Whole Reward” into their 2007 a cappella “Gospel Medley,” carrying his music into international popular culture and introducing his work to audiences who would possibly by no means have set foot in a Black church.
Nonetheless, on Capitol Hill, the tribute landed the place a lot of his legacy started: within the voices of believers and the facility of a choir.
