print: Renewed - Sheri Jones-Moffett | CD Review on BlackGospel.com

Renewed / Sheri Jones-Moffett
(EMI Gospel)

August, 2009 on BlackGospel.com
Musical Review by Jennifer Belot

It is not an easy feat to emerge from the familiar shadows of partnership or the group dynamic to bask in the spotlight alone, but a few brave souls have taken up the challenge and come out victoriously reinvented on the other side. We have as prime examples, Fred Hammond (post-Commissioned) and Bebe & Cece Winans who both found an audience to their singular ministries. And what of Karen Clark-Sheard, Dorinda Clark-Cole, LaShun Pace and most recently, Israel Houghton. Well Sheri Jones-Moffett is adding her name to this illustrious list of anointed singers who’ve been called to a singular purpose, as she reintroduces herself to the world with her debut solo project entitled RENEWED.

After a 3-year gestation period, this artistic baby is finally ready to be birthed and the Gospel world is aflutter with anticipation. On August 11, 2009, RENEWED will finally be released into the world, culminating in a concert at the Abundant Grace Fellowship Church in her hometown of Memphis TN. Teaming up with producer Daniel Moore II and powerhouse label EMI Gospel this album is an eclectic offering with Biblical passages artfully interspersed throughout the songs showing a spiritual maturity that need not be confirmed.

The wife, mother and spiritual sister wrote almost every song on the album, and explains “I hope to make that connection with people because I am able to put in song what they may not be able to articulate… Everything you hear is my life… These are things I needed to say and I had to say them on my own…”

Sheri has not always been on her own. However, having been privileged to be mentored by one of Gospel's music best pedagogues, in the person of Donald Lawrence, her pedigree was destined to go right through the charts. “Donald took me under his wing,” recalls Jones-Moffett. “He said he got a very strong feeling in his heart to raise me and train me. And even now with this release, I wanted to make sure he saw all that he had given me and I took the things he taught me and put it into action.”

Donald Lawrence's influence on Sheri’s songwriting is apparent in the inspirational Not Too Late to Dream. Spurred on by the recent political atmosphere that saw the first Black man rise to the highest position in the land, Sheri says “I reflected on this time in our history and the signature of the moment…” contemplates Sheri in explaining the inspiration for this song.

As a member of the synergistic duo, Ted & Sheri, she came to know Award-winning success and enjoyed the visibility only a less crowded stage could afford her. However, after two albums “The Healing Starts Right Here…” and Celebrate, it was time to move into a new chapter of her destiny. “I believe there was an assignment for me in both entities… being part of a large choir taught me humility and what it meant to be a part of a team – part of something bigger than myself,” she remarks. “While being part of a duo I learned how to be transparent… how to cover my partner and have my partner cover me. It’s all been important training for me to get to this place.” And so after more than a decade in the ministry, the woman, the singer, the palmist, reinvents herself for this latest leg of her ministerial journey.

From start to finish the title track is an ode to musical ingenuity of pre-disco Motown. Renewed is a positive, upbeat declaration of a woman who’s all grown up and ready to face the world in all of her heavenly splendor. But don`t get it twisted. The message is still deeply rooted in scripture as she adlibs the words of the Prophet Isaiah “… old things have passed away and behold all things are new!”

The radio-ready Free Indeed can only be described in Moffett`s own words as “the Beach Boys meets Outkast”, for whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

With the innocent voice of her young daughter as a fitting backdrop, innocuously asking, "Mommy, do you like carrots?", Wonder is a jubilant tribute to the once-precarious life of the little girl who was born at a mere 1.5 pounds but wonder, of wonders is now healed by the miraculous hand of the Almighty. Perhaps this experience is heralded best by Grace of God, a hopeful, soothing ballad that speaks to the conquering peace of God. Narrative and deeply personal, Sheri speaks through the testimony of her tears.

With Big Easy jauntiness, Sheri lets her Southern roots shine through and the Crescent City fire burn within her, with this down-home, old-time- hand-clapping churchy, sing-along of I Feel Your Spirit.

The piano trills alongside the songstress whilst the horns join in the perfect-pitched harmony in a smooth jazz accord as Sheri makes her life affirmation for all to hear that she chooses to live the very Best Life she can live. It is the essence of the message she aims to convey throughout the album “I hope that it is both empowering and enlightening … that listeners can peel back the layers (in them) to be the best person that God has purposed them to be,”. Continuing along the same vein, simple statements such as "I feel Jesus in this place... He's spreading mercy in this place... Let Him touch you in this place" make up the worshipful Affirmation, requiring nothing more than a piano and a gifted songstress to set the atmosphere for adoration.

Reprising her role with the award-winning Tri-City Singers of which she was a part for so many years, Sheri concludes the project with the ever-uplifting Encourage Yourself. An apt finale to a harvest of well-sown words of healing and encouragement, the music of Sheri Jones-Moffett calls you to "Be encouraged. Be inspired. Be renewed."