The Ferrell Phelps Show with Gospel Artist Angela Bennett
Annointed, empowering and refreshing are just a few words to describe the musical talent of inspirational artist Angela Dannett Bennett. For the past 30 years, Angela has graced many stages across the world with her eclectic mix of gospel, jazz, and rhythm & blues. She has sung with the likes of such artists as the late Ray Charles, Ricky Dillard, Kathy Taylor and Kenny Rogers to name a few. At the tender age of 12, Bennett began her singing career as one of the lead vocalists in the Southeast Inspirational Choir in Houston, TX under the direction of the late gospel greats Shirley Joiner, Carl Preacher and Brenda Waters. It was during her twenty-year journey as a choir member that she began to embrace her passion for singing and realize the gift it had to touch lives. Such an opportunity presented itself in the early 90’s when Bennett was recruited to sing in the popular stage play Only The Strong featuring other talented artists as Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Daryl Coley, and Keisha Ealy.
Other stage plays performed include Benny Rogers’s Paint the White House Black and Michael Matthews’s Wicked Ways. But it wasn’t until she debuted in Japan for Universal Studios that she realized how her music could transcend culture. “I was singing some of Aretha Franklin’s Respect during my Blues Brothers show when I met a man who was dealing with the death of his wife and felt like giving up on life,” recalls Bennett. “He shared with me that he had heard me singing across the waters and came to the show to see who it was,” Bennett remembers the man eventually coming to hear her sing every day. He told her that her music gave him a ray of hope. Hope is just one of the many attributes she wants her music to offer listeners. It is the same kind of hope her late mother and gospel great Carol Allen Simmons instilled in her as a little girl. A native Houstonian and the eldest of four, Angela is not new to the music scene but begins her career anew.