{"id":706095,"date":"2026-01-02T10:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T07:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/richard-smallwood-influential-gospel-singer-dies-at-77\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T10:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T07:45:10","slug":"richard-smallwood-influential-gospel-singer-dies-at-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/richard-smallwood-influential-gospel-singer-dies-at-77\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Smallwood, Influential Gospel Singer, Dies at 77"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tRichard Smallwood, a gospel singer and recording artist nominated eight times for Grammy Awards, has died. He was 77.<\/p>\n

\n\tSmallwood died Tuesday of complications of kidney failure at a rehabilitation and nursing center in Sandy Spring, Maryland, his representative Bill Carpenter announced.<\/p>\n

\n\tSmallwood had health issues for many years, and music gave him the strength to endure, Carpenter said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRichard was so dedicated to music, and that was the thing that kept him alive all these years,\u201d he said. \u201cMaking music that made people feel something is what made him want to keep breathing and keep moving and keep living.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmallwood\u2019s songs were performed and recorded over the years by artists such as Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Destiny\u2019s Child and Boyz II Men. Houston brought his music to film by performing \u201cI Love the Lord\u201d in the 1996 movie The Preacher\u2019s Wife<\/em>, according to Smallwood\u2019s biography at the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\n\tSmallwood \u201copened up my whole world of gospel music,\u201d singer and songwriter Chaka Khan wrote on Facebook<\/a> after his death.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHis music didn\u2019t just inspire me, it transformed me,\u201d she said. \u201cHe is my favorite pianist, and his brilliance, spirit, and devotion to the music have shaped generations, including my own journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmallwood was born Nov. 30, 1948, in Atlanta and began to play piano by ear by the age of 5, according to biographic materials provided by Carpenter. By age 7, he was taking formal lessons. He had formed his own gospel group by the time he was 11.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was primarily raised in Washington, D.C., by his mother, Mabel, and his stepfather, the Rev. Chester Lee \u201cC.L.\u201d Smallwood. His stepfather was the pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington.<\/p>\n

\n\tSmallwood was a music pioneer in multiple ways at Howard University in Washington, where he graduated cum laude with a music degree. He was a member of Howard\u2019s first gospel group, the Celestials. He was also a founding member of the university\u2019s gospel choir, according to an obituary from Carpenter.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter college, Smallwood taught music at the University of Maryland and went on to form the Richard Smallwood Singers in 1977, bringing a contemporary sound to traditional gospel music. He later formed Vision, a large choir that fueled some of his biggest gospel hits, including \u201cTotal Praise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTotal Praise\u201d became a modern-day hymn that touched people from all types of backgrounds and walks of life, Carpenter said by phone Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou can go into any kind of church \u2014 a Black church, a white church, a nondenominational church \u2014 and you might hear that song,\u201d he said. \u201cSomehow it found its footing throughout the whole Christian world. If he never wrote anything else, that would have put him in the modern hymn book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWonder performed \u201cTotal Praise\u201d at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s son Dexter Scott King at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 10, 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent years, mild dementia and other health issues prevented Smallwood from recording music, and members of his Vision choir helped care for him.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis legacy will live on \u201cthrough every note and every soul he touched,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am truly looking forward to singing with you in heaven,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Richard Smallwood, a gospel singer and recording artist nominated eight times for Grammy Awards, has died. He was 77. Smallwood died Tuesday of complications of kidney failure at a rehabilitation and nursing center in Sandy Spring, Maryland, his representative Bill Carpenter announced. Smallwood had health issues for many years, and music gave him the strength…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":706096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Richard-Smallwood.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[5200],"class_list":["post-706095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}