*Remembering ALBERTINA WALKER:
‘Her music was a healing balm to those who struggled for justice.’
By David McGee
The gospel world lost a giant on October 8 with the passing of ALBERTINA WALKER. Herewith, a look back at one of the 20th Century’s greatest gospel singers and social activists.

‘We Rejoice In The Destination’
by Terry Deboer, The Grand Rapids Press
Two-thousand-plus mourners, 100,000-plus online viewer send MALINDA SAPP home. A complete report of the Homegoing Service for Marvin Sapp’s wife and ministry partner, with some moving video clips from the service. Mrs. Sapp crossed over on September 9 following an 18-month struggle with colon cancer.

Y’ANNA CRAWLEY: Living ‘The Promise’
The Sunday Best champ works hard with faith
By Bob Marovich, The Black Gospel Blog
BET’s Sunday Best second season winner Y’ANNA CRAWLEY spoke with The Black Gospel Blog’s Bob Marovich, a regular contributor to TheBluegrassSpecial.com, a few days after the release of her first solo CD, The Promise. ‘I can lose myself in music and find myself in it,’ Ms. Crawley says of music’s healing properties. ‘Gospel music especially has helped me through my trials and my tribulations. It lets me know that when you fall down, and no matter what life brings you, you can always get back up. There's a word to help you in every situation and that's God's word.’

*BOB MAROVICH’S GOSPEL PICKS
This month’s Gospel Album picks from THE BLACK GOSPEL BLOG’s founder BOB MAROVICH include:

*LIZZ WRIGHT, Fellowship— Growing up in Georgia, jazz singer Lizz Wright grew up the daughter of a minister and sang gospel. No surprise then that on her exquisite new gospel-centric CD, Fellowship, Wright sounds like she's been singing the glory down since birth. She has.

*KIM PERSON, Speak Life— Kim Person is a gospel singer from North Carolina, and she possesses that distinctive amalgam of singer, performer, evangelist, witness, prophet, encourager and comforter that talented female gospel singers have. All of these traits, of course, are best exercised—and best witnessed—in live performance.  Person's new live project, Speak Life, demonstrates that ably.

EVELYN TURRENTINE-AGEE, There’s Gonna Be A Meeting—"Give me that old key," a female voice drawls. An open chord is plucked note for note on an electric guitar, in the fashion of the Golden Age quartets. It's the cue for that female voice, belonging to Stellar Award-winner Evelyn Turrentine-Agee, to launch into "He's Using Me," which she does, rocking a bluesy beat and sounding for all the world like a protégé of Mavis Staples.

SHEKINAH GLORY MINISTRY, Refreshed By Fire—Apostle H.D. Wilson, co-producers and writers Phil Tarver and Michael Weatherspoon, and the multitudinous worship warriors of Shekinah Glory Ministry are back with Refreshed By Fire, their new two-CD experience. I don't use the word "experience" lightly, because that is what it is. From the opening to closing notes, Refreshed By Fire is the dramatic, theatrical, colorful, eclectic and soul-renewing project that gospel music has come to expect from the music ministry of suburban Chicago's Kingdom Valley Ministries.