Post by sam on Oct 17, 2005 11:26:31 GMT -5
I hope everyone is as excited as me!!!
www.modbee.com/life/readysetgo/story/11339232p-12087155c.html
Doers & Viewers: The gospel according to Rosetta: Lift your voice to heavenly heights
By AMY WHITE
BEE STAFF WRITER
Last Updated: October 12, 2005, 07:33:01 AM PDT
For gospel singer Rosetta Mines, raising her voice in song is heavenly.
Mines, 59, has been singing since shortly after she could talk. "I come from a family of 12," she explained. "My mother, sisters and brothers all sang and played piano. We had a family choir. I think that is where my love for music came from. They say I was singing at 2."
Originally from Indianapolis, Mines has lived in California for about 35 years, the past six in Modesto. Her husband of 28 years, Joe Mines, is a music promoter and pastor of Modesto's First Love Community Church.
Rosetta directs Modesto Community Choir, a group of singers from nearly a dozen area churches. Its members are from a variety of denominations, ethnicities, ages and walks of life. They perform at Modesto's International Heritage Festival, at California State University, Stanislaus, and other venues around the region.
Mines has always kept busy. Before 1980 when she began limiting her singing to gospel music, she sang in musical theater and performed in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. She sang at the Music Circus in Sacramento and sang on Princess Cruises' Love Boat.
Mines wrote, produced and performed locally a musical stage show, "Hallelujah Anyhow," about the plight of the homeless. In 1986, she performed with a gospel group at the World's Fair in Vancouver, B.C. She has hosted radio and TV gospel shows and taught choir in the San Juan School District in Sacramento.
She spent a week in Oslo, Norway, in 1999 teaching an 800-member boys choir. In 2003, she received the Stanislaus Arts Council's Excellence in Arts Award.
Her latest project is producing a gospel album by The Temptations Review, featuring Dennis Edwards, the former lead singer with The Temptations who also sang with The Contours. His voice fronted Temptations' hits such as "Ball of Confusion" and "Papa Was a Rolling Stone."
The group's first gospel album includes several songs written by Mines. It will be released in January or February 2006 on the Modesto-based 3-M Music label.
Mines herself has recorded gospel choir albums with groups she performs with, including Voices of Rhema, Sacramento Fellowship Choir and Two Agree. She also sings with a group called Awesome Praise.
Writing gospel songs helps Mines, who is also a nondenominational minister, express her need for and love of God, she said.
Songs often are based on "experiences in life when you wonder why you are having this experience. Sometimes God will give you the lyrics to sing while you are having a hard time. ... When you think nobody loves you, you begin to feel the Lord. ... He lets you feel his love."
Q: How did you get the Modesto Community Choir started?
A: The late Dr. E.V. Hill was scheduled to speak here (in 2000). There was a rally and a service. (My husband) Joe put the choir together for that program. Afterward, everybody loved it so much they said, "We want to keep this going."
Q: What is the choir's philosophy?
A: The philosophy is we have one common bond that is our love for praising God in song. One requirement is you have to be a member of a church somewhere. It's kind of difficult to sing about something if you don't know about it. (If you do), you have more conviction.
Q: What was it like teaching gospel music to 800 boys in Norway?
A: That was really exciting. The youth in Europe are excited about gospel music. It is very different. If you are used to steak and it is a common thing, compared to someone who has never had steak in their life, they devour it. It is the same with gospel music (in Europe). They love American gospel music. They just eat it up. It made my job easy.
Q: What was it like in the recording studio with Dennis Edwards?
A: There are two songs that are my favorites. One is "Look What the Lord has Done," which might be the title of the CD, and "Lord I Love You." It just expresses how we feel about the Lord. As he was singing that song, we felt the presence of the Lord. Everybody had tears in their eyes.
Q: How do you feel when you sing gospel music?
A: There is a joy you can't explain, a peace you can't explain, in spite of what you may be going through in life. There is something that takes over. ... When you start giving (God) praise, he comes on in and he moves.
Q: How would you feel if you couldn't sing gospel music?
A: I can't fathom that. You get up in the morning and you sing — it is just a part of you. I pray to God that I continue to be able to sing. It brings me so much joy to do it. (The desire) didn't come overnight ... but after a while, you realize it was God who put that desire there to do it. I thank God that I can carry a note and am able to hear music."
Q: What do you hope to share through gospel music?
A: The love of God. ... No matter what race, or color, when he looks at us, he just sees a soul.
Contact Bee staff writer Amy White at awhite@modbee.com or 578-2318.
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PROFILE
Name: Rosetta Mines
Hometown:
Modesto (raised in Indianapolis)
I am so happy about this upcoming CD. It has been a dream of mine for a long time that Dennis and the Review do some gospel recordings. I can imagine the tears everyone must have had because Im sure Dennis put his heart and soul into this project---afterall, the man can take any regular song and take you to church on it, so I can imagine what he does on gospel songs. Congratulations Tempts Review!!!!. I can't wait to hear this.