David Hollister’s Album is Released

If there is any artist that can testify to both the triumph and the treachery of the music industry it is singer/songwriter Dave Hollister. Over a career that started in the late “80s, he has worked with some of the biggest artists in gospel (Yolanda Adams, Daryl Coley and Vanessa Bell Armstrong), R&B (Patti LaBelle and Mary J. Blige), Hip Hop (Redman and Father MC) and Pop (Tom Jones and Bruce Hornsby), contributed to a number of film soundtracks (including The Prince of Egypt, The Brothers and Baby Boy), been a member of super producer Teddy Riley’s multi-platinum selling vocal group BLACKstreet (he sang lead on their monster hit “Before I Let You Go”) and recorded four solo CDs, the second of which, Chicago 85 ...The Movie, was a Gold-seller on the strength of the hit single, “One Woman Man.” Music fans have been good to Hollister, but he has too often been done dirty by the sharks that infest the “music biz.”

After taking a hard look at his life, his calling and his blessing as an artist who can truly affect people with the things he sings and writes, Dave Hollister is embarking upon a profound shift in the music he makes. This “new beginning” is marked by his fifth project, The Book of David: Transition. For those not acquainted with Hollister as an artist or a man, much of what you need to know about this album is right there in the title:
Book of David means that the album, like his previous ones, is largely autobiographical, reflecting things he’s lived, felt, seen and deems pertinent to light life's path for others.

Transition means that this is a work from a man at a crossroads. Therefore, it is not a “traditional” gospel or inspirational album. Hollister is not so presumptuous as to make a pure praise album - yet - because so many people only presently know him as an R&B star. More importantly, people who really know Dave Hollister understand that he remains 100% true to self at all times. That includes a blunt honesty about his past as well as his present. In that spirit, The Book of David: Transition is as much a purging for himself as it is a primer for those going through the same challenges he’s faced across his storied life. “I don’t know of any other way than to put my life out there,” Hollister states, “because it’s going to help people. God has really blessed me.”
“My album is aimed at the audience I already have,” he continues. “I talk about things church people either hide from or act like they don’t deal with. And the beats are as hard as anything from my first solo album, Ghetto Hymns. (Producer) Mike City hooked me up with a track called ‘Nothing But God’ that’s so ghetto, it sounds like something Mobb Deep would do! Vickie Mack Lataillade (CEO of GospoCentric) always wanted to present an album like this, but nobody could really do it. When I came to her with The Book of David: Transition, she was a little fearful, but she wanted to push the envelope. She just asked one thing: “Give me a song I can take to traditional gospel radio.”

That one song became “The Potter (a.k.a. Jesus Picked Up the Pieces),” a classic that Hollister believes his favorite singer of all-time, Donny Hathaway, would have done. “It’s got a slow, takin’ my time with it kind of tempo,” Hollister states, “like a cross between Donny’s ‘We Need You Right Now’ and ‘To Be Young Gifted & Black.’ It’s an old O’Neal Twins song that Andrae’ Crouch wrote. I’ve been a fan of the O’Neal Twins since I was a kid. (Producer) Shep Crawford put a new arrangement on it for me and I knew exactly what to do with it. Once I gave her that. Vickie let me do the rest of the album my way.”

The roots of Hollister’s life turn and subsequent CD came after a New Year’s 2004 show he did in Dallas with his friend, R&B singer/songwriter Tank. 'The whole hotel was sold out and we were playing in the main ballroom. But after the show, the promoter ran off with the money. I had to go home to my family with not a penny to show for why I wasn’t home that holiday. This wasn’t the first time this kind of thing had happened to me and I couldn’t take it no more. I got on my knees and asked God to deliver me from this situation.”

Systematically, Hollister’s whole life began changing before his very eyes. He dropped his management company and he asked for a release from his secular recording contract with DreamWorks/GeffeaTnterscope. Sadly, on tax day of 2004, his divorce from his wife also was finalized. By June of 2004, Dave moved from Los Angeles back to his mother’s house in Chicago. A 35 year-old man then, Dave immediately began mending his relationship with God. Pictured Above: Dave Hollister