Richard Smallwood, gospel singer and musical inspiration, has died aged 77

Richard Smallwood, an eight-time Grammy Award-nominated gospel singer and recording artist, has died. He was 77 years old.

Smallwood died Tuesday of complications from kidney failure at a rehabilitation and nursing facility in Sandy Spring, Md., his representative, Bill Carpenter, announced.

Smallwood had health problems for many years, and music gave him strength to endure, Mbazi said in an interview.

“Richard was devoted to music, it was the thing that kept him alive all these years,” he said. “Making music that made people feel like something made him want to keep breathing, keep moving and keep living.

Smallwood’s songs have been performed and recorded over the years by artists such as Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Destiny’s Child and Boyz II Men. Houston brought his music to film with a performance I love the Lord in the 1996 film The Preacher’s Wifeaccording to Smallwood’s history at the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Smallwood “opened up my whole world of gospel music,” singer-songwriter Chaka Khan wrote on Facebook after his death.

“His music not only inspired me, it changed me,” he said. “He is my favorite pianist, and his brilliance, spirit and dedication to music have shaped generations, including my own journey.”

A musical pioneer

Smallwood was born on Nov. 30, 1948, in Atlanta and began playing piano by ear at the age of five, according to biographical information provided by Carpenter. When he was seven years old, he was taking lessons. He had founded his own gospel group by the time he was 11 years old.

He was raised mostly in Washington, DC, by his mother, Mabel, and his stepfather, Reverend Chester Lee (CL) Smallwood. His stepfather was the pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington.

Smallwood was a music pioneer in many ways at Howard University in Washington, where he received a cum laude degree in music. He was a member of Howard’s first gospel group, the Celestials. He was also the first member of the university’s gospel choir, according to Carpenter’s obituary.

After college, Smallwood taught music at the University of Maryland and went on to form the Richard Smallwood Singers in 1977, bringing a modern sound to traditional gospel music. He later founded Vision, a large choir that fueled his greatest gospel hits, incl Perfect Praise.

That song became a modern hymn that touches people from all kinds of backgrounds and walks of life, said Mbazi.

“You can walk into any kind of church — a Black church, a white church, a non-denominational church — and you might hear that song,” he said. “Somehow it got its footing all over the Christian world. If he had never written anything else, that would have put him in the modern hymnal.”

Stevie Wonder performed Perfect Praise at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, Dexter Scott King, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 10, 2024.

In recent years, mild dementia and other health problems have kept Smallwood from recording music, and members of his Vision choir help care for him.

His legacy will live on “through every note and every soul he touched,” Khan said. “I look forward to singing with you in heaven.”