There is perhaps no better artist than singer/songwriter Dave Hollister to testify about the virtues and struggles of a born-again Christian man. As one of the most powerful and persuasive of this generation’s soul singers, Dave made his mark in the mainstream music world – first singing background for folks across the spectrum of pop music from Yolanda Adams to Patti LaBelle; as a coveted session singer for motion pictures such as The Prince of Egypt and The Brothers; as a member of multi-platinum-selling group BLACKstreet, and then as an R&B solo artist with four albums featuring radio hits such as “One Woman Man” and “Take Care of Home.” Then, around 2004, he made a profound life-altering decision to answer the call to ministry that was first put on his life when he was only 17. “I ran from it for a long time,” Hollister says. “I finally decided to accept it once I came into the full knowledge of my relationship with God.” This decision transcended to his musical career and Dave Hollister the R&B artist became Dave Hollister the gospel recording artist. The result of this transformation was his forthrightly titled Gospocentric/Zomba Gospel debut The Book of David: Transition, an honest and real series of mostly self-penned songs about struggles along life’s path that eventually brought him closer to Jesus Christ.

Two years later, Dave Hollister returns with the continuation of that journey on Witness Protection, a CD that still reflects the catharsis of autobiography but more fervently reaches out to others with messages of light and hope – songs that are desperately needed not only among believers but Americans and citizens of the world. Those dual missions are clearly delineated in the album’s humbling opening number “I’m Here” and the sonically thrilling “Glow.” “I had several different concepts going through my mind when I started preparing this second album,” Hollister shares, “but as I got closer to the actual recording, this big recession fell on America. People are hurting and need messages of striving. I began to understand that God wanted to use me to speak hope and faith into people. This new CD is still me...but it’s a lighter me.”

However, a “lighter” Dave Hollister does not mean one without a heavy concept overall. “From my all-time favorite singer Donny Hathaway and Curtis Mayfield in Chicago to Marvin Gaye in Detroit, most of us mid-western artists are very conceptual,” Hollister – a Chicago native – states. “The idea behind Witness Protection is me entering into a witness protection program under The Lord as I go out to the people to give His message, so ‘the enemy’ can't touch me as I testify against his devices. The enemy wants people to be depressed and hopeless; broke in a recession forever; but I'm protected by The Holy Spirit and the angels to tell the people that God says there is always hope in Him.”

Longtime fans will note the absence of skits and interludes that Hollister typically uses to bring his concepts to vivid life. “(chuckling) I just ran out of time this time,” he confesses! “But in the absence of interludes and skits, I was very specific about the sequence of the songs so that they tell a story – from ‘I’m Here,’ which is my mission, to ‘Champion’ which is about everyone getting through these trying times victorious.”

The first single from Witness Protection is “Striving,” a joyous, hand-clapping declaration of faith that God has our backs in every waking day, therefore whom shall we fear? “Me and my band MVP (Most Valuable Players) have been performing that song for a year and a half now to amazing response.” Dave says. “In fact, we had been performing a lot of these songs before recording them, so the live musicianship feel you hear is exactly the way we’ve been performing them in shows.”

Key to the bulk of this album is Dave’s 24-year-old cousin Jevon Hill, the album’s primary writer and producer. It says a lot for Dave to turn over these responsibilities to anyone else, but he knew the power of Jevon’s music would touch others because it touched him first. “Jevon has been my MD (musical director) for a while, but this is his first production and I'm very proud of him. Jevon and his friend Jeremy McIntyre used to have a group and originally did these songs for themselves but they never came out. But we've changed them considerably over the years. I did all of the background vocal arrangements to give them my signature. Jevon played all of the keyboards while his brother Jimmy Hill, Jr. played all of the slammin’ drums. They’re both a major part of my MVP band, along with Rick Benjamin who plays bass and wrote a couple of songs, and 22 year-old Markeith Black on guitar. Their songs spoke to me…saying things I wanted to say. I don't have to write every song on my albums. I just have to be in the same ‘season’ that the song is in. And when we hit them live...oh, man!”

Among the album’s many and diversified highlights are “Secret Place,” which was penned and arranged by Jevon’s father James Hill, Sr. – “Uncle Jimmy” to Dave. “That one says that when I'm having problems and can't function, I need God to meet me in our secret place,” Dave explains. “It really knocked me out when we were recording it. I looked up and said, ‘God, you're gonna do me like this?!’ The song was originally just piano and guitar but the live strings (performed by The Nashville String Machine) took it to the highest of heights.” The strings also add a majestic lift to the climactic CD closer “Champion,” but are most dynamically used on “Standing,” one of three songs Dave composed for the album. This powerful piece (with strings arranged by Chris McDonald from Jevon’s original keyboard lines) sounds like a cross between the symphonic soundtrack soul of Isaac Hayes (think “Shaft”) with a rock edge to the chorus to speak to Christians standing firm in Christ and their faith.

Extraordinarily compelling is a song with the youth in mind (and a children’s choir on the final chorus) titled “I Know I Can.” Also moving on the contemporary tip is the clever “Don’t Stop” that uses a ballad groove as the music bed for a comforting message about perseverance through the storms of life. Those storms are more literally dealt with on the prayerful and tender song that follows it, “Calm da Seas,” with the insightful refrain, “Don’t let the storm roar / But don’t stop the rain so that I might grow.”

That leads into another of the album’s most powerful “movies for the ears” titled “Look Up,” a deeply inspired and personal piece from the pen of David Hollister that many people will relate to with its reference to misfortunes such as foreclosures and high health insurance costs that are all over the headlines of every newspaper. “When my brother-in-law played the track for me over the phone,” Dave witnesses, “all I initially got was the melody and the words ‘look up.’ Not long after, my pastor – Pastor Jesse Wright, Sr., who was also my brother-in-law’s father – passed away suddenly. We were very close, but because I was working I didn't get to the hospital to see him before he died, so I felt guilty. There was so much hardship going around me at the time, too, like my brother not being able to pay for one of his twin boys to go to the hospital when he was sick. So when I got on the plane to go to Chicago to record ‘Look Up,’ the lyrics just started coming to me. I turned on my iPod, listened to the track and they just flowed from my mind to the pad.”

As Dave’s ministry continues to grow (he is the newly appointed minister of music at New Direction Christian Church in Memphis, Tenn.), he recognizes the importance of continuing to reach people where they are, and is planning a tour that will include mainstream venues. 

“We all know some people don't go to church,” Dave states, “or even to the Kirk Franklin concert. Some have one foot in the street and another in church, but find it hard to respect some of the members because of things they’ve seen them do outside. But they might trust somebody whose music they’ve been listening to all along who’s found a better way. If they can see a change or a light in me, maybe I can spark them. In the Bible, it says Jesus lived among the people, but the people could tell there was a difference in him everywhere he went.” In doing this Dave fulfills what is perhaps his ultimate charge, which is to seek out new souls for saving.  It is this task toward which he will endeavor – blanketed by the witness protection that only The Lord can give.

Reflecting back on a powerful recent memory that brought this modus operandi into sharp focus, Dave testifies, “My praise team participated in a live church recording for a gentleman putting on a youth concert. Afterwards, I was talking to a friend in the lobby when a young man approached me. He said, ‘I just want to tell you how much your Book of David album means to me. I was locked up in prison for 13 years. When I got your album, I didn’t even know you had started singing gospel, but I listened to it everyday and that's the reason why I'm saved today.’ I looked at him and told him, ‘You're saved because God wanted you to be, but I appreciate you.’”

“When I got to my car, I broke down and cried like a baby,” Dave concludes. “My music and my message had truly broken through to somebody! I told God, ‘If I don’t hear nothin’ else the rest of my life, that's enough for me.’”