Renowned musician visits Blytheville

Nationally renowned Gospel artist and pastor John P. Kee was in Blytheville Friday, making a stop on his tour to perform a free concert at a packed Prince of Peace Church.

Blytheville Mayor James Sanders presented Kee with a key to the city and proclaimed Friday as "John. P. Kee Day."

"John P. Kee has been inspiring fans and performing to sold-out audiences, singing exciting, high-energy Gospel music that captivates listeners from all walks of life," the proclamation reads. "The popularity of this Stellar-Award-winning Gospel artist continues to grow from a regional following to national notoriety."

Kee said he met Prince of Peace Pastor Tim Rogers years ago and the two have been friends ever since.

"I was on my way to tour and I said what a better time to stop here and be a blessing," Kee said. "We have a great outreach ministry in Charlotte and we just want to bring that spirit here and encourage the people."

When told by someone local residents were excited he is in town, Kee said: "Not as excited as we are to be here."

"I got saved about 28 years ago and since then we do outreach," he said. "We chose a community in Charlotte that was one of the most dangerous areas to live and now it's called the city of praise. So we take communities and just by going out and being a blessing to the people. I opened up a school there and the men of God would walk around and police the community. We wouldn't allow the drugs and the violence to come into that area at night. The trucks couldn't pull in and it changed it."

Kee was born 15th out of 16 children and was raised in Durham, NC. At home in Durham, music and attending church highlighted the family's weekly activities. Kee exhibited extraordinary talent at an early age, both vocally and instrumentally. An excellent student, he was placed in a special school for the musically gifted children, and he started his musical career at the age of 14.

Kee moved to Northern California where he studied with brothers Al and Wayne at the Yuba College Conservatory School of Music in Marysville and became involved with the area's top musicians where his music skills flourished. While living in California he had a chance to meet and play with numerous some of jazz greats such as Donald Byrd & the Blackbirds and Cameo. In his late teens, Kee drifted into a street lifestyle that brought him to Charlotte, NC. Once in Charlotte, he moved to the Double Oaks Community and began a life of corruption.

Kee said material possessions offered him no consolation, and the senseless violence that encompassed him became insufferable so in his early 20s he began to turn his life around. Kee said he gave his life to the Lord at a revival meeting at PTL in Charlotte and returned to active involvement in the Church.

In the mid 1980s he started a community choir in Charlotte. This choir, which eventually grew to become the New Life Community Choir, achieved rapid success. Albums titled "Wash Me", and "We Walk by Faith" carried him into the late 80's with a bang.

In early 1995, Pastor Kee released his gold award winning "Show Up" CD, which increased his popularity in the music industry.The '90s brought the beginning of what would be a flood of awards for Kee including more than a dozen Stellar Awards, 20 GMWA Excellence Awards, a Soul Train Award, and two Billboard Music Awards.

In 1995, Kee and New Life Community Choir reached their first commercial peak with the gold award-winning album Show Up which was also nominated for a Grammy, as was his 1999 album Strength. It was during this time that Pastor Kee also accepted his call to minister and pastor the New Life Fellowship Church in Charlotte, NC.

In response to the prophet word received from Bishop Norman Wagner in early 1995, "Build It and I'll Come," Pastor Kee says, "It was on that night that I knew to go forward and build a Fellowship Center in Charlotte, NC, to teach and preach the uncompromising Word of God."

"So built we the wall..., for the people had a mind to work." These sentiments of Nehemiah can still be heard echoing in our present Christian Society.

mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com