Bishop Rance Allen of the Grammy-nominated soul and gospel trio The Rance Allen Group has died at the age of 71. “While recovering from a medical procedure at Heartland ProMedica [in Sylvania, OH]Bishop Rance Allen passed away around 3 a.m. this morning,” Allen’s wife of 49 years, Ellen Allen, and his manager, Toby Jackson, said in a joint statement. “I did not expect to hear this news this morning,” said Tyscot Records President Bryant Scott, who was nearly speechless upon learning of the singer’s death. “This is a great loss for us personally but also for the church community as a whole.”
The Rance Allen Group’s brand of progressive gospel and Allen’s signature growls and squalls inspired a generation ofgospel artists from Kirk Franklin and Fred Hammond to John P. Kee and Bryan Andrew Wilson. In the 1970s, they pioneered a fusion of R&B rhythms with spiritually charged message music on hits like “Ain’t No Need of Crying,” “I Belong to You” and their cover of The Temptation’s “Just My Imagination” as “Just My Rising.” The retro-soul vibe carried over to the group’s hits of the last two decades like “You That I Trust,” “Miracle Worker” and “Something About the Name Jesus,” which has racked up more than 175 million streams. It’s a brand that has earned them fans beyond the gospel world, like American Idol’s Randy Jackson and pop rockers Huey Lewis & The News. In a 2019 Rolling Stone interview, Lewis cited “Ain’t No Need of Crying” as one of his top 5 favorite soul songs of all time alongside tracks by Ray Charles and others.
Rance Allen was born on November 19, 1948, in Monroe, MI. One of twelve children, he began singing and preaching as Little Rance Allen at age five. “We grew up in a family where you went to church every night,” he once said. “To keep us interested, my grandmother Emma Pearl went to a pawn shop and brought in instruments, drums, guitars, and amplifiers.” Using records by the Rev. James Cleveland and Ray Charles as guides, he taught himself to play piano before taking up guitar with Chuck Berry as an influence. His grandparents were his agents, but he once told writer Lee Hildebrand, “I didn’t have a life like most kids. I wasn’t allowed to play baseball with the guys and do the things a kid does.”
Around 1967, Rance, himself on guitar, formed the Rance Allen Singers with his older brother Tom on drums and younger brother Steve on bass. They recorded their first song, “Let’s Get Together and Love”—a psychedelic number with Allen’s stratospheric high notes and a direct message about Jesus Christ sacrificing his life on the cross so that humanity could love one another—for the local Reflect label. Then, in 1971, they won a $500 prize at a Detroit talent show where legendary Stax Records promoter Dave Clark was in the audience. Clark liked what he heard and took the rebranded Rance Allen Group into the studio and recorded an album’s worth of material that Stax Records purchased.
Stax chairman Al Bell loved the trio’s music so much that he created the subsidiary The Gospel Truth specifically to promote it. Their first single was “Just My Salvation,” a 1971 gospel cover of The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination.” Soon they were appearing on bills with The Dramatics and Barry White and bringing their R&B-infused gospel to unchurched audiences. Their following was built on hits like “I Gotta Be Myself,” “I Don’t Have to Cry,” and “That’ll Be Enough for Me.”
In 1975, they moved to Capitol Records where they recorded a few albums before returning to Stax in 1979 after the company was purchased by Fantasy Records. During this period, the group had their biggest radio hit of the Stax era, “I Belong to You,” which reached the Billboard Top 30 R&B Singles chart. From there, they moved to Myrrh Records where they recorded two albums, including I Give Myself to You, which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart in 1985.
It was in the 1980s that Rance Allen really began to focus on evangelism. Church of God in Christ (COGIC) leader Bishop GE Patterson began mentoring him. Under his leadership, Allen founded the New Bethel Church of God COGIC in Toledo, OH in July 1985 and was elevated to the rank of bishop within the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in 2011. In addition to preaching in his own church, Allen spent a lot of time on the road evangelizing with Bishop Patterson. Allen did not record again until former Stax head Al Bell launched Bellmark Records in 1991. The Rance Allen band released the album, Phenomenon. It hit No. 1 on the Billboard gospel album sales chart with the radio hit “Miracle Worker” and earned them a performance spot on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”
A decade later, they signed with Tyscot Records and entered a new phase of their career with the Deitrick Haddon-produced set, All the Way, in 2002. However, it was 2004’s The Live Experience that became the band’s best-selling album of their entire career. It featured Kirk Franklin on “Something About the Name of Jesus” which has amassed over 175 million streams alone. The album also featured guest appearances from Fred Hammond on “Miracle Worker” and LaShun Pace on “I Can’t Help Myself.” In the years that followed, the group scored radio hits with “Do Your Will,” “You That I Trust” with Paul Porter, “Closest Friend,” and “A Lil Louder (Clap Your Hands).”
In 2018, rap icon Snoop Dogg featured Rance Allen on his Billboard Gospel Digital Songs Top 10 chart-topper, “Blessing Me Again.” It won a BET Award for Best Gospel/Inspirational Song in 2019. At the time of his death, Allen was planning to record a new gospel album with contributions from PJ Morton, Charlie Wilson, and Kirk Franklin before the COVID19 pandemic put the project on hold. The band Rance Allen’s most recent studio recording, “I’m So Glad It’s Christmas (Tyscot)”, was released on all digital music platforms on October 30, 2020.
Allen is survived by his wife, Ellen Marie Allen, and his brothers, Steve and Tom, and other extended family members.
Author: [email protected] (Jessie Clarks)
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