Earnest Pugh

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Biography

Earnest Pugh (born November 28, 1971) is an American gospel music singer- songwriter with a five-octave vocal range, who rose to fame with the #1 Billboard Hot Gospel Songs hits “Rain on Us” (2009) and “I Need Your Glory” (2011). His recent radio successes have earned him the title of Gospel Music’s Leading Man. He’s also the founder and President of EPM Music, a record label.

EARLY YEARS

Pugh is the seventh of nine children and was born in Memphis, TN. His father, Earnest Pugh Sr., worked at a Firestone plant in Flint, Michigan and commuted to see his family on weekends. His mother, Lillie Pearl Pugh, worked for the government and held a number of part-time jobs to help support her brood. She was the first to notice Pugh’s singing ability and encouraged him to sing. “My mother believed in me and what I could accomplish,” he once told the Miami Times. “Her death a few years ago hit me hard but I used that pain to inspire my writing on my last two cds. We are confronted with good and bad situations throughout our lives and somehow we have to face them. Some write poems or books or plays as these circumstances arise – for me the lyrics just came off the paper and they became the songs that people are enjoying today.”

During his late teens, Pugh briefly sang was with the Grammy Award winning Memphis-based gospel choir, O’Landa Draper & The Associates.
However, Pugh’s tenure with the ensemble was so short that he rarely mentions it because he enlisted in the Army and built a fifteen-year career there. He told The Washington Post that, “I frequently was called on to sing at funerals.”

After retiring from the military, Pugh held a number of positions with churches as a worship leader in Texas and Georgia. In 2001, he became a worship leader at Ebenezer AME Church in the Washington, D.C. area.

CAREER BREAKTHROUGH

After seeking recording contracts from major gospel record labels and receiving rejection from each one of them, Pugh decided to launch his own label in 2006. His first album, “Earnest Pugh Live: A Worshipper's Perspective,” was released via a distribution agreement with Detroit’s Crystal Rose Records label. The radio single “Wrapped Up, Tied Up, Tangled Up” rose to the Top 40 on the now defunct Radio & Records gospel radio chart and began to lay the foundation for his career. He followed up the next year with a CD entitled, “Seasons Change,” that failed to chart.

A chance meeting with Blacksmoke Worldwide Gospel Records founder, Kerry Douglas, whom had taken James Fortune & FIYA and Keith Wonder Boy Johnson to the top of the gospel charts, would be pivotal to Pugh’s evolution as a national artist. “He told me back in 2008 that he could take my single Rain on us to number one and he did just that in less than eight weeks,” Pugh told the Miami Times. “Folks began calling into the radio stations and things just started happening.”

The dramatic ballad spent two weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Gospel Songs chart in 2009 and cemented Pugh’s stature as Gospel’s New Leading Man. The CD, “Live: Rain on Us,” also featured the Top 40 gospel radio hits “Perfect Peace” and “The Great I Am.”

In early summer 2011, Pugh delivered to Blacksmoke another CD simply entitled, “Earnestly Yours.” Douglas had Pugh re-record James Fortune’s track, “I Need Your Glory.” The song shot to the Top Ten in a few weeks and eventually reigned over The Billboard Hot Gospel Songs chart for ten weeks. The song and the CD earned Pugh the best media coverage of his career. “Pugh is a pointed and slick singer (and dresser), and for most of this strong album he provides a solid center while his backup choir sings in hushed and reverent tones,” Jon Carmanica wrote in The New York Times. “Rarely do arrangements get in the way here. Mr. Pugh has soaked in the best elements of the last couple of decades of gospel innovation for a sound that’s practiced but not stern.”

In January 2012, Pugh announced that his EPM Music label had formed a distribution agreement with Entertainment One Distribution and would soon be signing a variety of high-profile gospel artists to record under his label banner.

PERSONAL life

Pugh was married for 18 years but divorced in 2006. He’s the father of two adult children, a son and a daughter. He currently resides in Bowie, Maryland.

ALBUM CHARTS

Project !! Charts
Earnestly Yours
Earnestly Yours
Earnestly Yours
Earnestly Yours
Earnestly Yours
Live: Rain On Us
Live: Rain On Us
Live: Rain On Us
Live: Rain On Us
Earnest Pugh Live: A Worshipper’s Perspective

SINGLES CHARTS

Project !! Charts
I Need Your Glory
I Need Your Glory
I Need Your Glory
I Need Your Glory
I Need Your Glory
Perfect Peace
The Great I Am
Rain On Us
Rain On Us
Rain On Us

AWARD SHOWS

Project !! Award
2012 STELLAR AWARD NOMINATIONS
2012 STELLAR AWARD NOMINATIONS
2012 STELLAR AWARD NOMINATIONS
2012 STELLAR AWARD NOMINATIONS

References

Category:American gospel singers
Category:African American singer-songwriters
Category:Living people
Category:1971 births
Category:Singers with a five octave vocal range

Copyright Citations

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