By: Fay Henclewood
MIAMI – I heard a song on the Caribbean station recently, and the voice sounded familiar. I’ve been hearing it a lot since, and the announcer confirmed that it was Dobby Dobson with a new album called ‘Love Songs For Jesus’. My, my..the silkiness of “Sweet dreams” and “Muriel” was still evident but the theme…so different.
I attended a gospel concert recently, in aid of my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship fund, and discovered that Dobson was one of the performers.
So now I have my own copy of “Love Songs for Jesus”.
The CD starts out with a poignant lovers rock type song called “Lord, I Owe You” which exudes the reverential awe of someone who just can’t believe that a person so tainted and undeserving could be so unreservedly forgiven. The line, ‘in spite of all the wrongs I’d ever done, your blood could set me free’, is so plaintive, it’s worth the cost of the album.
But wait, I moved on to “Falling in love with Jesus” and was deeply moved, though not as much as I was when I heard ‘for those tears I died’. Now that one is the tear jerker.
“Jesus Is My Daddy-O” is a ska type up tempo that allows you time to put away the hanky and do some praise and worship hot stepping, till you are again whisked into contemplation with ‘he touched me’ and ‘ one day at a time’.
After that, it’s driving medleys of the old time religion ilk, reggae medleys, and an infectious soca song starting with ‘I will enter his gate with thanksgiving in my heart’ to ‘oh, magnify the lord’ and ending with “Ain’t Nobody to me like Jesus”.
Production credits include Zemroy Lewis of the famous ‘Code Red Band’, and the product is being handled through VP Records, Florida.
Good work Dobby.
