INTERNATIONAL recording artiste and Grammy Winner Pastor Donnie McClurkin is to perform in Jamaica this Sunday at a free concert to be held at the National Heroes Park in Kingston.

Fellowship Tabernacle will host McClurkin and a team from Perfecting Church out of New York as they participate in a number of activities.

The highlight of the visit, will be an open-air meeting at National Heroes Park, under the theme; Mission: Live Love

Pastor of Fellowship Tabernacle, Reverend Al Miller said this will be used to announce the Citizens Unite: Live Love campaign — an exercise that challenges citizens to return to love as the foundation principle for successful living.

McClurkin was born November 9, 1959, in Amityville, New York, his childhood home was mired in domestic violence and drug abuse until an aunt who sang with gospel music great Andrae Crouch introduced him to the musical icon who in turn introduced him to his future.

Young McClurkin played keyboards with his church youth choir before forming the McClurkin Singers with relatives and friends in 1979.

Despite a call to preach, he never loosened his grasp on music. In 1989 Donnie started the New York Restoration Choir and recorded the album I See A World, which contained the classic Speak to My Heart.

Two near-simultaneous events changed McClurkin’s life forever. Just as he was appointed as an associate minister at Marvin Winans’ Perfecting Church in Detroit, he also learned that he’d been stricken with leukaemia. While battling the disease, McClurkin was signed to Warner Alliance Records as a solo artiste where he recorded his pivotal self-titled album.

Through BeBe Winans, media mogul Oprah Winfrey learned of McClurkin’s music and struggle, invited him on her top-rated TV show — an opportunity that catapulted his CD to number four on the gospel charts, recognition beyond the church world.

McClurkin soon after signed to Verity Records where his first CD, Live in London and More, would far surpass his solo debut thanks to secular radio embrace of We Fall Down. The song made the Top 40 of Billboard’s R&B chart and rocketed past platinum sales of over one million copies sold instantly making McClurkin among gospel’s best selling artists.

He earned a trophy case full of Dove and Stellar Awards plus other honours including an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Gospel Artiste.

In 2000, he graduated to establishing his own Perfecting Faith Church in Freeport, New York, all the while continuing to release the magnificent musical works Again (2003) and the double CD Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs (2005) each one garnering the coveted Grammy Award.