Tasha Richard Smallwood, an eight-time Grammy® Award nominated, classically trained composer and gospel recording artist, died on Tuesday, December 30th @ 12:36 AM at the Brooke Grove Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. He died of complications of kidney failure. He was 77. Over the last five decades, he’s written some of the biggest songs of the gospel music genre such as “I Love the Lord,” which was remade by Whitney Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir for 1996’s The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack and Boyz II Men’s 1997 album, Evolution, closed with a song “Dear God” that included a refrain of it. “Total Praise” was covered by Destiny’s Child on their 2007 acapella track, “Gospel Medley.” With The Richard Smallwood Singers and later Vision, Smallwood enjoyed his own hits with “I Love the Lord” and “Total Praise,” as well as “Center of My Joy,” “Anthem of Praise,” and “I’ll Trust You.”
Smallwood’s 2007 album, Journey: Live in New York, featured performances from Chaka Khan, The Hawkins Family, Kelly Price, and Kim Burrell. Smallwood’s final album, Anthology, was released in 2015 and featured the Gospel radio hit, “Same God.” In 2019, Smallwood published a book, Total Praise: The Autobiography, which detailed Smallwood family secrets as well as his personal battles with grief and depression.
In the last few years, mild dementia and a variety of other health issues have prevented Smallwood from recording. In his darkest days, he always referenced music as a solace and a method of ministry. “I don’t know that I have all the answers or any of the answers,” he once said in a 1993 Washington Post interview. “But being a minister of music, I need to be open to listen and give a word of encouragement through songs of testimony. Singing is only part of it. The ministry itself is much more than that.” Aside from 8 Grammy® Award nominations, Smallwood earned three Dove Awards and multiple Stellar Gospel Music Awards.
Smallwood is survived by his brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews and several godchildren.
