- Saved And Sent To Sing The Gospel Music Workshop Of America Mass Choir 4:35
St. Louis, MO, summer 1988. The annual gathering of James Cleveland’s Gospel Workshop of America is in full swing and, after rehearing all week, the GMWA mass choir is ready to record it’s new album to be released in the spring of 1989. James Cleveland founded The Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA) in 1967 to offer gospel musicians an alternative outlet to present their work that might not be accepted by the “other” annual summer gospel gathering, Thomas A. Dorsey’s National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses (NCGCC) that he founded in 1933.
Dorsey (“The Father of Gospel Music”)/NCGCC = Old School gospel
Cleveland (“The King of Gospel Music”)/GMWA = New School gospel
Cleveland studied and learned his craft at Chicago’s Pilgrim Baptist Church under the tutelage of Thomas A. Dorsey.
I like this song a lot and I like the idea of some amazing grace saving Larry Dennis so he could write this song and sings lead on this album. I get the feeling that, for reasons unknown to me, that Mr. Dennis truly believes in his heart he has “been saved and sent to sing”.