Gospel enthusiasts know Bishop Albert L. Jamison for his associations—his leadership of the Gospel Music Workshop of America, his mentorship by the late Rev. James Cleveland, his acclaimed recordings alongside the Tri-Boro Mass Choir.

It’s an enviable legacy by any standards, but Jamison doesn’t dwell on any of it when discussing Show Yourself Mighty, his dazzling new album with the New York State Mass Choir. He doesn’t really need to: this long-awaited tour de force isn’t only one of the most anticipated efforts of his career—it’s one of the prime gospel-music events of the year.

“Anytime people would refer to me, they would refer to me as, ‘I remember, I remember,’” says the 30-year GMWA forebear. “Now you don’t have to remember. Just come to my church and see what we’re doing now.”

Indeed, Show Yourself Mighty isn’t merely a revisiting of glories past. While it does hearken back to his beloved, GRAMMY®-nominated opus In God’s Own Time, My Change Will Come, the album trails a blaze of its own as it reflects where the minister presently stands in his own personal, musical, and pastoral quest.

Recorded live before an ecstatic, standing-room-only crowd in Jamison’s home turf, Brooklyn’s Pleasant Grove Tabernacle, Show Yourself Mighty is a top-to-bottom gospel delight, an elegant, Sunday-morning extravaganza like there’s few in today’s contemporary gospel landscape. Jamison and Light Records spared no expense in lining up the stars to make the proceedings a reality, bringing in seasoned producers David Caton and Jules Bartholomew to man the boards and provide a balanced mixture of old-time traditional stunners and just enough current elements to create an atmosphere both timeless and up-to-date.

Joining the festivities, music co-laborers and luminaries John P. Kee, Hezekiah Walker, Rev. Timothy Wright, Lucinda Moore, and Bishop Paul S. Morton, among others, all provide their vocal stylings to the project, but don’t be so quick to mistake this for a celebrity parade. Instead, Show Yourself Mighty is a testament to the bishop’s deep-rooted church heritage, a bona fide congregational recording where choral processionals and corporate voices join together in unison.

As far as church-based recordings go, it simply doesn’t get better than this: From the opening strains of the declaratory “Just Your Name Alone” and the life-affirming “Born Again” to the gripping testimonial of “Not My Will,” Jamison is intent on taking listeners to church…and leaving them there. The true centerpiece here is the title track, a worshipful, corporate feast with a high melodic quotient, escalating dynamics, and an accessibility that are bound to make it a favorite in the Body-at-large.

Show yourself mighty, show yourself strong
Show yourself awesome in the midst of the storm

It’s an empowering, triumphant declaration, one that comes into sharper focus when cast against the pastor’s own victories through the seasons of life. Afflicted with a speech impediment at an early age, the odds for a bright future in music—or any other career for that matter—looked dim for Jamison.

“Growing up, I had a stuttering problem,” he reminisces. “The therapist used to tell my mom that there was nothing they could really do for me. They could [try to] help me, but I would never be able to talk like I needed to talk, and that probably would impact my future.”

Unyielding and prayerful, his parents didn’t bow to the doctors’ prognosis and treated Jamison like a normal child. Normality for Jamison, however, was different from other boys his age. Born into a blue-collar family in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, Jamison and his siblings developed a working-class mentality since very young, helping their father run a floor-waxing business and never quite living the proverbial kid’s life.

“Everybody had to work,” recalls the pastor. “My dad was in his late 40s when he had me and my twin brother, so he was really old-school. We didn’t go to boy scouts, cub scouts, or camp. We couldn’t spend the night at anybody’s house. We couldn’t play stickball unless it was on Saturdays. When we got older we would leave about 5 or 6 in the morning, and when we got home it would be 7 or 8 o’clock at night.”

Jamison felt deprived at the time, but in retrospect, his father’s business ethos gave him the entrepreneurial, take-charge disposition he’s known for today. “We were upset with my dad,” he recollects. “I couldn’t understand it at the time. I used to cry to my mom and complain about my father because he would never let us go out. But now I’m glad he did that because it made me into the person that I am today.”

Just as a young Jamison learned the ropes of his father’s trade, he began fostering a heart for his true passion: music. In time, the musically-inclined Jamison would go on to participate in and lead a number of singing groups, vocal ensembles, and gospel choirs. It was during this stint as a budding choirmaster that James Cleveland took the ardent vocalist under his wing to serve in one of the branches of the organization he founded—the GMWA.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” says Jamison of Rev. Cleveland’s appointment. “I’m not a musician by trait. I thought he was looking for somebody that was more musically influenced to direct choirs.” Yet Cleveland was able to see beyond the then-teenager’s inexperience—Jamison was the youngest-ever chapter representative in the entity’s history—and sensed his vision and leadership, two qualities that became ingrained in Jamison’s conscience during his growing-up years. The rest, as they say, is gospel-music history.

Today, after three decades of pastoring, service, and ministry, and more than a decade removed from recording an entire album under his own namesake, Jamison is ready to dive headlong into the Show Yourself Mighty era.

“I looked around and everything around me was right for a comeback,” he says. “Wherever God guides, he provides and you will know it. Everybody knows it’s your green light. One day I looked around, I had the right ministry around me, the right musicians around me, the right everything around me. I feel like God said, ‘Why don’t you just do it one more time?’”