Gospel

The Washington Performing Arts Society will mark its 40th anniversary season with the premiere of a gospel work commissioned for the occasion and the presentation of a cross-section of classical and jazz talent. The 2005-2006 lineup includes a dozen events in the newly opened Music Center at Strathmore, as well as several dozen more at the Kennedy Center and other Washington venues. Although WPAS recently cut back on the quantity of touring orchestras it presents, the quality of the list remains high.

CONTINUING A 23-year-old tradition, Bethesda and Zion United Methodist churches have scheduled their annual Country Gospel Music Show for 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Westminster High School. Each three-hour performance will feature country gospel vocal groups the Kingsmen, the Lewis Family and the Booth Brothers. "It's grown on me," acknowledged Delores M. Bankert, a member of Zion United Methodist in Westminster who has helped organize the event for the past 15 years. Bethesda United Methodist is in Sykesville.

Before there was The Gospel of Music with Jeff Majors on TVOne, one man had the gospel-music-on-TV format sewn up. And this year that man, Bobby Jones of Bobby Jones Gospel on rival BET, is celebrating more than 30 years at the helm of a spirit-filled empire. Sunrise Music of Nashville has released Faith Unscripted, a CD/DVD that pays tribute to Dr. Bobby Jones' gospel-music career. Jones' show is the longest-running show on the Washington-based cable network.

Julia A. Hall-Kenton, who sang with area gospel choirs for more than 60 years, died June 26 of sarcoidosis, a rare autoimmune disease, at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. She was 73. Julia Ann Johnson was born in Baltimore and raised there and in Towson. She was a graduate of Dunbar High School and worked as a seamstress. Mrs. Hall-Kenton, an alto, was a youngster when she began singing with her siblings and an uncle, who were known as the Johnson Family Singers. "They toured throughout the state and the Mid-Atlantic region," said a daughter, Bonnie McClellan of Baltimore.

Philadelphia -- SHE HAD to sing from a chair this night. For the past couple of years, she didn't always know if she'd be well enough to sing.Her friends at the Gospel Music Preservation Alliance asked Marion Williams to sing at an Action AIDS benefit at New Bethlehem Baptist Church.The diabetes -- that later took both legs and eventually her life on July 6 -- and the drain of dialysis three days a week weren't going to be enough to shut her up on this night.So she eased herself into a chair near the altar, took her time with the microphone.

The Gospel Choir of St. John Baptist Church, at Wilde Lake Interfaith Center, will hold a series of four gospel workshops beginning Sept. 17 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. The workshops will conclude with a concert on Oct. 8 at 6 p.m."The workshops are open to anyone with an interest in gospel music," says Barbara Barnes, director of the St. John choir. "You don't need choir experience. We just want people who like to sing."The workshop will be directed by Valeria Foster and offers an excellent opportunity for vocalists to learn from one of the most prominent gospel directors and performers in the Baltimore-Washington area.

Growing up, all I knew of Dionne Warwick was that she brought a touch of class to Solid Gold, the hopelessly cheesy '80s music variety show my sisters and I watched every Saturday. As the elegant, stylishly coiffed host, she sang the hits of the day. I remember radio stations in 1985 that seemed to play "That's What Friends Are For," her smash charity single with Gladys Knight, Elton John and Stevie Wonder, to no end. But nobody around my way -- including my music-loving parents, aunts and uncles -- owned any Dionne Warwick records.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. William Morrow. 408 pages. $25.95. Thirty years ago, Christopher Moore might have excited a storm of protest for writing the Book of Biff, which is what this fresh Gospel account of Jesus' missing years attempts in sometimes hilarious fashion. Instead, one suspects this silly novel will slip past even the most conservative religious censors because Moore has such an innocently adolescent sense of humor and the once fundamentalist defenders of Christian propriety have come to understand the "unchurched" generation better than they did in the alarmist days of Holden Caulfield and The Life of Brian.

Elmer Elijah Mackall, a self-taught Southern Maryland piano player and gospel singer whose music drew on the days of slavery and hard times of the rural South, died of complications from emphysema Sunday at his Prince Frederick apartment. He was 81. "It was fitting that he died on a Sunday, and when he died, he was listening to a CD of his music," said a daughter, Thelma M. Clagett of Prince Frederick. Known as "Brother Mackall" and "Piano Man," Mr. Mackall was a well-known figure in Southern Maryland, where for 70 years he performed in rural African-American churches, hotels, clubs and venues such as St. Mary's College, where he was part of its first Gospel Extravaganza in 2003.

Pauline Wells Lewis, known to thousands of Baltimore-area gospel music fans as Aunt Pauline or the Godmother of Gospel during a career as a radio-show host and gospel singer, died Tuesday of heart failure at Mercy Medical Center.For more than 50 years, Mrs. Wells, 87, of West Baltimore sang and was host of gospel music radio shows in Baltimore and nationwide."She worked her own style, and it was such a great delivery she had," said Su Wood, station manager for WBGR-AM, Mrs. Lewis' last radio station, where she worked until health problems forced her to resign this year.