After the Finale
Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers have called it quits after a terrific 15 years. The choir director shares his best memories with us, and talks about where he'll go from here.
by LaTonya Taylor | posted 4/17/2006
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The latest album from Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers, Finale, recognizes the end of the choir's award-studded 15-year career. With hits like "Stranger," "When the Saints Go to Worship," "Never Seen the Righteous," and "I Am God," the Tri-City Singers emerged as standard-bearers of the mass choir tradition. Tri-City not only held their own when it came to traditional gospel, but they also blended Lawrence's classical choral influences and R&B impulses with the genre, adding touches of aural and visual dramatic flair for good measure. Lawrence spoke to Christian Music Today about how Tri-City came to prominence, the group's legacy and his hopes for the future.
Talk about the decision to end things with the Tri-City Singers.
Donald Lawrence: The cliché is that all good things come to an end, and I think it's better to end at a time when things are at a good place, as opposed to a declining place. We're all growing older, and now many of the members of the choir have their own musical aspirations. Everyone's been very loyal to the choir—in fact, there are a couple of groups and artists who developed through the choir—and it's just the time for everybody to transition into their other careers.
The Tri-City Singers have never had an influx of new people, or a lot of turnover. It's always been all of us or none of us. Now that many of us are moving on, I preferred that we just come together, and, like the Bible says, "they sang their hymn and went home," rather than just turning the remaining members into a brand-new choir. Also, business-wise, it's expensive to travel with choirs, and they're definitely not a low-maintenance choir (chuckle).
It seems like we're in a period where the era of the big mass choir is in decline.
Lawrence: I think choir music is going to be around forever. As a recording artist, I think [the industry] should always record choir songs, but those songs will be mostly on albums as opposed to live performances. Radio-wise, they'll play it to death. It's just that the climate is not right for traveling a choir, moving them around and branding them.
When it comes to live performances, when you can get J Moss by himself, or Mary Mary or Kurt Carr or Martha Munizzi—and some background singers—nobody wants to fly 30 people or 40 people around. People still ask for Tri-City to perform, but sometimes they'll ask me if I can come with six people. My thought is, that's not the Tri-City Singers. That's Donald Lawrence and Company. Tri-City Singers is 30 singers. So, doing a record with 30 singers but traveling with seven people doesn't really make sense to me. But more than anything, I just think that spiritually it's just time for us to transition, time for everybody to get ready to do their thing. That's the number one reason.
You've talked about the end of the Tri-City Singers. How'd things get started?
Lawrence My time with the Singers actually started while I was on the road. I graduated from Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and toured with Stephanie Mills as her music director. I wrote a lot of choir songs and recorded them on tapes. At that time, a friend of mine directed a community choir called the Tri-City Singers. He was always looking for songs to teach the group, and they sang some of my songs. I knew that I wanted to release a choir album—to do something with all of this music I'd been writing that other artists were interested in. I always told myself that when I got to do a choir album, I wanted to record it with them. My friend left the choir around the same time I was looking to make my own transition and get serious about recording my music.
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