Like most things that stand the test of time, Gospel music performers have to evolve to stay current with today’s listeners, but not too much that they lose sight of their roots.
Legacy is a local group whose members are doing just that — Brenda Peace-Jones and Tonya Richards are original members of the quartet looking to the future as they remember the work of other family members that helped them get their start.
Legacy is having a concert to celebrate its first anniversary on Saturday, Aug. 12 at West Oxford Elementary School in Oxford. The concert is free and open to the whole community to enjoy,
The Henderson-based group will be joined by multiple other groups that will perform as well. The doors open at 3 p.m. and the concert begins at 4 p.m.
Betty Richards always wanted her children to sing, Peace-Jones said. And so they did. That was at least 50 years ago, however.
“As time went on,” she told WIZS co-host Bill Harris on TownTalk, “the Richards family was dying off.” She credits her nephew George with keeping the family’s music alive.
Gone are the days of big ol’ amps and microphones everywhere when musicians wanted to play and sing. Today’s young musicians have loads of technology at their fingertips to make things easier.
“I’m grateful for the younger people,” Peace-Jones said, adding that they know all about different platforms where music can be heard and enjoyed by others.
“The sound is refined through the electronics,” Richards said. “That’s a great way that technology has made a difference.”
When they were young, they were inspired by the likes of pop artists Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye, as well as Gospel legends like James Cleveland, Walter Hawkins and Milton Brunson.
Peace-Jones said as times change, and people change, the music can change, too. But it’s important to keep the music’s message Bible-based and positive “to make people feel good.”