Ben Tankard (born January 24, 1964) is a former professional basketball player and an American gospel, jazz keyboardist producer, songwriter and motivational speaker. Ben dropped out of college after one year to play minor league pro basketball in Canada. He was invited to an NBA camp but was injured and cut. Ben rebounded from his basketball injury to become the world's bestselling and most popular musician in gospeljazz music.
Often referred to as the "Godfather of Gospel Jazz", Ben Tankard discovered Yolanda Adams, signed her to his independent record label, Tribute Records (Ben-Jamin' Universal Music) and produced several of her earlier works. Tankard has also recorded a series of well received instrumental solo albums and soundtracks, with music styles ranging from pop to R&B to smooth jazz. Tankard was the first artist to dedicate complete instrumental albums to a mixture of gospel and jazz, thus the term "gospeljazz".
Since he came on the scene in 1990 Ben's musical accomplishments have earned him a total of three Grammy nominations, eight Dove Award nominations, and twelve Stellar Awards including 2010's "Best Instrumental Album" for his Mercy, Mercy, Mercy CD. This was his career highest charting release and featured an instrumental remake of the Chris Tomlin Christian hit song, "How Great Is Our God". Though many of Tankard's releases have received heavy rotation on gospel and smooth jazz stations, The Weather Channel, XM Satellite Radio and cable TV's Music Choice, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy was the first CD in the history of Billboard Magazine to chart on the gospel, contemporary jazz, and jazz chart all at the same time.
Kirk Whalum (born July 11, 1958) is an American smooth jazz saxophonist and songwriter. He toured as Whitney Houston's opening act for several years and has recorded a series of well received solo albums and film soundtracks, with music ranging from pop to R&B to smooth jazz. Kirk’s musical accomplishments have brought him a total of 12 Grammy nominations.
Kirk won his first Grammy award in 2011 for Best Gospel Song (“It’s What I Do”-featuring Lalah Hathaway) alongside life-long friend and gifted writer, Jerry Peters.
Kirk Whalum born July 11, 1958 in Memphis, Tennessee, was surrounded by music as he grew up in the R&B capital of the South. Kirk attended Melrose High School and Texas Southern University where he was a member of the World Famous Ocean of Soul Marching Band. In addition to singing in his father's church choir, Whalum also learned to love music from his grandmother, Thelma Twigg Whalum, a piano teacher, and two uncles, Wendell Whalum and Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum, who performed with jazz bands around the country. These influences proved lasting, as he told John H. Johnson's magazine "Ebony Man" in a 1994 profile, "The music I like to play and write encompasses the four elements I grew up with: Memphis R&B, gospel, rock, and jazz. The emphasis, though, is on melody, period."
Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born January 17, 1931) is the first African American to be elected as governor of Virginia and first African-American governor of any state since Reconstruction. Wilder served as the 66th Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. When earlier elected as Lieutenant Governor, he was the first African American elected to statewide office in Virginia. His most recent political office was Mayor of Richmond, Virginia, which he held from 2005 to 2009.
Wilder was born in Richmond, the seventh of eight children of Robert and Beulah (Richards) Wilder. The grandson of American slaves, he was named after the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. He attended George Mason Elementary School and Armstrong High School, then racially segregated. He did his undergraduate work at Virginia Union University, where he graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1951. Wilder is a prominent life member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
Wilder served in the Korean War, earning a Bronze Star for heroism at Pork Chop Hill. He rose to leadership in his first experience in an integrated organization, as President Truman had desegregated the military in 1948. After his service, Wilder earned a law degree at Howard University School of Law under the G.I. Bill. Virginia university law schools did not then admit African Americans. He graduated in 1959 and returned to Richmond to co-found the law firm of Wilder, Gregory, and Associates.