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 I Never Lost My Praise  Working with producers Kurt Carr and Jamie Hawkins (her son), Tramaine delivers eleven songs on this, her tenth solo project, recorded live at Reid Temple AME Church in Glenn Dale, Maryland. The album is wonderfully accented with praise and worship cuts, and also moves in traditional territory that fits right into Sunday morning. The peerless band includes Maurice Rogers, PJ Morton, Joel Smith, Jonathan Dubose and Lloyd Barry’s horns crew, among others.Hawkins begins the proceedings with “Excellent Lord”, a churchy cut punctuated by enthusiastic exhortation from producer Carr. Tramaine’s soprano vocals are in fine form, not having lost any of her renowned punch. “Come Holy Spirit” heralds the start of the praise and worship segment of the project. Written by Jamie Hawkins and his wife, Sunny Hawkins, Tramaine sensitively renders to the song so as to emphasize the worship-filled lyrics. Flowing directly out of the song is “Worship You”, which Tramaine handles in the same way. The “Worship Medley” is a meld of three familiar choruses, with begins acappella with Tramaine singing “Praise The Name of Jesus”, followed by Lenny LeBlanc’s “There Is None Like You” and a fresh version of Bill Gaither’s “There’s Something About That Name”.  Tramaine honors Edwin Hawkins with her up-to-date cover of “Oh Happy Day”, which she prefaces with an introduction where she explains her involvement with the smash hit when as Tramaine Davis, she was a member of the Northern California State Youth Choir, soon re-named to The Edwin Hawkins Singers on the surge in popularity of their independently-recorded Let Us Go Into The House of The Lord LP in 1968.Other album highlights include the midtempo title cut, featuring Patrick Lundy & The Ministers of Music, whose restrained vocal power add potency to Hawkins' emphatic expression of defiant praise. Lundy and company return again on the Carr-penned traditional bounce of "Like Never Before". On "Lord You Are", Richard Smallwood steps the piano bench, adding his signature keyboard touch to the soft praise tune that Hawkins interprets with sensitive phrasing. Count I Never Lost My Praise as yet another star in Tramaine Hawkins body of work.
Email This To A Friend GospoCentric Records — reviewed by Stan North —
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