By By GREG KATSKI
Community Editor
A new gospel music association will be singing praises to God at the Washington High School Performing Arts Center on Saturday evening.
The Rainbow Gospel Music Association features a wide variety of local music talent, with musicians ranging from young and old, black and white and everywhere in between. The show begins at 5 p.m.
Rainbow Gospel co-founder Bill Ebison said the association gives gospel musicians and enthusiasts another way to fellowship.
“We wanted to have a platform where different ethnic groups can come together and fellowship,” he said.
Musicians slated for the association’s first performance on Saturday include 84-year-old gospel-music stalwarts Ann Ellis and Deacon Randolph Ore Jr., St. Peter’s Episcopal Church’s praise team, Spring Garden Baptist Church’s male chorus, Anne Vaughn, Linda Clark, Tom Cobb, Leah Bullock, Roland Suggs, Marjelene Watts, 7-year-old gospel rapper Kamoren Watts-White, Hispanic Christian rock group Los Compos De Gro and Rainbow Gospel founders Ebison and keyboardist David Ellis.
Tickets for the show are $10 each for adults and $5 each for children 12 and under. Tickets may be purchased from any performer scheduled for the show or at radio station WTOW, located at 408 N. Market St. The station can be reached at 975-1320.
“(The show will) give some people a chance to sing for a large audience,” Ebison said.
The Rev. Haywood Johnson, a disc jockey at WTOW and co-founder of the association, said he isn’t going to judge the show’s success based on turnout.
“God would be so pleased if we saved one lost soul. Who knows who’s going to be saved?” Johnson said.
Ebison and Johnson anticipate a good showing from children and senior citizens, considering they gave away 1,000 tickets to the show to local senior centers and church youth groups.
“It’s an effort to give back to the community,” Johnson said. “Our main concern is taking care of people, but we have to have support from the community.”
Ebison said that if the show brings in any money for the association it will be used to fund similar programs at senior centers.
“Some of us had already been doing programs (for seniors),” Ebison said in regards to association members. “We’re expanding on that and trying to do more.”
“We want to do as much as we can to help senior citizens have a happy holiday,” he added.