Richard Smallwood Dies at Age 77

Richard Smallwood, an eight-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated, classically trained composer and gospel recording artist, died on Tuesday, December 30th at 1236 AM at the Brooke Grove Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. He died of complications of kidney failure. He was 77. Over the last five decades, he’s written some of the biggest songs of the gospel music genre such as “I Love the Lord” which was remade by Whitney Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir for 1996’s The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack and Boyz II Men’s 1997 album, Evolution, closed with a song “Dear God” that included a refrain of it. “Total Praise” was covered by Destiny’s Child on their 2007 acapella track, “Gospel Medley.” With The Richard Smallwood Singers and later Vision, Smallwood enjoyed his own hits with “I Love the Lord” and “Total Praise” as well as “Center of My Joy,” “Anthem of Praise” and “I’ll Trust You.”[…]