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MCG Records is proud to announce the signing of Helen Baylor to an exclusive recording contract. With seven consecutive Top 10 albums to her credit over the last 15 years, Baylor is one of Gospel’s true leading ladies. Her partnering with the Atlanta-based MCG, also home to Gospel superstars Lee Williams & the Spiritual QC’s represents the reuniting of Baylor with MCG President/CEO and industry titan James Bullard, who discovered and signed Baylor to her first recording contract in 1989.
Bullard’s early faith in Baylor’s amazing talent and broad appeal was bourn out when her debut release, Highly Recommended, cracked the gospel Top 10 the following year. The unbroken chain of hit albums that followed included Baylor’s 1994’s landmark project, The Live Experience, which not only soared to No.1, but remained on the charts for over two years. Both Baylor and Bullard are equally excited about the reunion and all it holds in store.
“What I saw, what I heard, what I believed when I first met and signed Helen is still there, and all the more so,” says Bullard. “Helen is one of the most phenomenal Gospel artists ever, and my faith in her has only grown over the years.”
Baylor is just as effusive in her praise for her mentor. “James Bullard is not only a giant in this industry, and a man of true integrity,” she says, “he’s also the one who first saw something in me, and believed in me. This feels to me like coming full circle, and I know I’m right where I belong.”
Baylor will co-produce her MCG debut, set for a mid-2005 release, with Jerry Peters, MCG’s vice-president of A&R, and for over 30 years one of pop and Gospel music’s most highly renowned producers, songwriters, arrangers and instrumentalists. In addition to Baylor’s MCG splash, another highlight of the label’s mid-year releases will be Peter’s own emergence to the forefront from behind the scenes of countless hits by other artists, with Jerry Peters & Friends, a project featuring collaborations between Peters, as producer/arranger, keyboardist and songwriter, and a number of the celebrated artists with whom he’s worked over the course of his illustrious career, as well as several of today’s hot, young contemporary Gospel artists.
“It’s my hope and desire,” says Peters, “that this creation will bless a very broad listening audience.”
Peters’ latest accolade came as producer of 2003’s Top-5 smash, Right On Time, by Lee Williams & the Spiritual QC’s, which also went on to sweep the 2004 Stellar Awards with an event-topping five trophies. Over more than three decades, Peters has appeared in various capacities on the work of countless diverse acts, running a mind-boggling gamut, a small sampling of which includes Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole, Mary Mary, Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie, Boyz II Men, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Gladys Knight, Herbie Hancock, Patti LaBelle, Kirk Whalum, and Earth, Wind & Fire.
Completing the full-circle that Peters’ and Baylor’s upcoming reunion represents, early in their careers Peters was also arranger and keyboardist on Baylor’s first single, the 1963 r&b hit, “The Richest Girl in the World,” on which she was billed as “Little Helen.”
Peters’ Gospel resumé is just as formidable as his mainstream credits. He has collaborated extensively with a host of luminaries, among them Yolanda Adams, CeCe Winans, Andrae Crouch, and DeLeon Richards Sheffield, as well as producing Grammy Award-winning albums for the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and Rev. Milton Brunson.
“Jerry and I have worked together since the early ‘80s,” says Bullard, “and his phenomenal talent and track record speak for themselves. We’re excited about this project because Jerry has been so instrumental, not only in the making of hit songs and records for other artists for so many years, but in literally launching artists’ careers. It’s time he stepped forward and received the attention and recognition he himself—as an artist in his own right—so richly deserves. The pool of talent he’s drawing into this project with him is going to create one of the Gospel’s most high-profile, premier releases of the year.”
Bullard, who almost single-handedly built the original Gospel rosters of both Word Records and Intersound Music, breaking the careers of all-time greats Shirley Caesar, Al Green, Philip Bailey, Leon Patillo, Deniece Williams, Vickie Winans, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and countless others, has continued his hit-making ways with MCG, which he founded in 1997, with chart-toppers Lee Williams & the Spiritual QC’s, Slim & the Supreme Angels, and G4 leading the way. The outlook for the coming year is even brighter.
“MCG is definitely headed for great things,” Bullard concludes, “with the success we’ve already had with our existing roster, and now with greats like Helen Baylor and Jerry Peters leading the way in 2005, the potential for us is enormous. Both of these projects will significantly expand the range of music MCG is noted for. The experience of working with talents like Helen Baylor and Jerry Peters is once-in-a-lifetime thing. Helen’s project is going to feature great songs and great production, but just as importantly, a great relationship with people who understand her, and go back with her to the very beginning.”
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