Exuberantly re-emerging with new EP and purpose
By: Karen Ri’Chard McMillan, SEIC Historian and Owner, Literally Speaking
Like a new day’s dawn, SouthEast Inspirational Choir (SouthEast/SEIC) exuberantly emerges from their 5-year COVID and production hiatus to present their new extended play record on May 23, 2025, entitled, LEGACY… which is what it really is.
This SEIC legacy, the gift that keeps on giving, spans more than five decades to produce, as foretold years ago by Gospel legend Carole Allen Simmons. The choir has yielded nationally acclaimed gospel artists, musicians, actors, and producers, including Yolanda Adams, Angela Bennett, Gregory Curtis, Gene Moore Jr., Risé Joiner Peters, Nikki Ross, Jennifer Holiday, Christopher Walker, Donald “DēP” Paige, Dana Monique, Evangeline Young, Quinn Lagrone, David Bennett, Truth, Deleatrice “Dee” Washington, Rennette Brown, Demetria Jackson, Charles Jones, Philip Cornish, AND influenced so many others.
SouthEast Inspirational Choir, formerly SouthEast Inspirational Youth Choir, was established in 1970 by gospel music trailblazers Brenda Waters, Carl Preacher, and Shirley Joiner (BC&S), who ministered music in their respective Missionary Baptist Churches in Southeast Houston, Mt. Olive, Outreach and Christian Hope. In 1971, SouthEast presented their first DEDICATION & PRAISE concert at Houston’s South Park Baptist Church on Valentine’s Day, successfully prompting their founders to make them a permanent choir. Later that year, they performed at James Cleveland’s Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA) in Dallas where they were awarded 1971-72 Most Promising Choir. That recognition landed them a record deal, the first youth choir to get signed without auditioning, and so their journey began…
Though their founders have gone to their heavenly home, as reflected in many of the songs they penned, they are never forgotten. Because of the impact they made on the lives of many, their gospel legacy endures and much of its history is recorded on the back of SouthEast albums.
From the 70s through the 90s, SouthEast members learned to sing, perform, and minister in local churches, revivals, conventions, theaters, television, museums, parks, prisons, campaigns, nursing homes. and churches in the U.S. They sang abroad in Europe, Barbados, and Japan with many members recalling first flights, passports, and major artist connections. More than a choir, SouthEast was family because many of its members not only sang together, but attended classes, worked, played, and grew up together. At a time when big choirs were trendy, what made them different was their extraordinary vocal tone and range, decorum, strict schedules, community mindset, and contemporary customized music written for them by BC&S. Their directors handed these young charges ‘the CHARGE,’ unknowingly making gospel music history. And so SouthEast became known as the choir that recognized and developed the musical gifts of youth and young adults, and many wanted to join. Their songs were recorded live, and in the studio; and people all over the country imitated the ‘SouthEast sound’ still relevant today.
For three decades, if a church wanted a guest choir to sing at their anniversary, they called SouthEast. When a choir was needed to sing in the Gospel at Colonus production at Miller Outdoor Theater, SouthEast was chosen. When producers were searching for talent to sing “Something Inside So Strong” with Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton at NASA, they called SouthEast, and when Ray Charles recorded a song in Houston and looked for a local choir, a call was made to SouthEast. For years, local and out-of-state fans attended the choir’s annual Rededication Anniversary concerts in Houston on the second Sunday in February where renowned gospel artists such as Daryl Coley, Twinkie Clark, The Anointed Pace Sisters, The Winans, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Donnie McClurklin, Lisa Paige-Brooks, Richard Smallwood, Donald Lawrence, Richard Odom, and many more were their musical guests.
In 2001-2010, SEIC, Inc., embraced their inheritance by hosting Preparing Holy Disciples Youth & Young Adult Conferences (PHD) where they gathered and taught hundreds of young people about salvation, music, and life; and also gave college scholarships to aspiring leaders. These youth – many of them SouthEast children, cousins, and friends of friends who learned about singing, instrumentation, church, and purpose – are their legacy and still connected today. Today, SEIC members say, ‘those sweet, precocious, busy, restless, talented children, now adults, inherited the charge.’ The Choir is proud that their planted seeds continue to yield gifted artists, singers, musicians, teachers, preachers, and business owners.
On a historic second Sunday in February 2020, SEIC celebrated their 50th anniversary with a reunion concert at Houston’s Silverlake Baptist Church. More than 1700 ‘framily’ members gathered and were spiritually transported as SouthEast Inspirational Choir sang SEIC & BC&S songs that were local and billboard hits, including tributes led by Kim Burrell, Donald Lawrence, The Walls Group, Kathy Taylor, Hedreich Nichols, George Lacefield, and former SEIC members Yolanda and Gene.
Their new Legacy EP is a mashup of that live 50th concert and studio recordings that combine SEIC, PHD and friends reviving the mission of spreading the gospel in song and deed…throughout the generations. Legacy features a remix of three SEIC signature songs: “That Will be Glory for Me,” originally written and led by Shirley Joiner, now led by daughter director Risé Joiner Peters and granddaughter Esprit Hunter, Renowned Kathy Taylor, and Songstress Demetria Jackson. “One Look at Jesus,” written by Carl Preacher, led by original soloist Pastor Jesse Jones and his praise-worthy daughter Myra Jones. The last song, “My Liberty/The Difference,” also written by Carl Preacher, is a unique blend of the two songs originally led by Yolanda Adams, now brilliantly led by Yolanda plus a quorum of SouthEast and PHD singers.
Legacy, the long-awaited follow-up of SouthEast’s last album (The Gospel Vol 3) released in Japan in 2000, is produced by Risé Joiner Peters | Shirise Publishing (“Inspire Me,” Kenny Rogers, Windsor Village), Donald “DēP” Paige | N 2 DeP Publishing (Beyonce, John Legend, Sunday Service), and Paul Richard (V. Michael Mckay, Cedric Ballard). It is a heartfelt homage to BC&S, faithful choir members and celebration of past, present and future. This historic collaboration is the substance of the familiar SEIC song exhortations: “Look How Far the Lord Has Brought Us” and “Lord Here We Are Again,” and serves an alluring prelude to their Full Circle LP loading.
In February 2025, more than 100 SouthEast villagers gathered for a private preview of the Legacy EP in the SEIC Legacy Hour at member Angela Bennett’s Healer in the Land Conference, Surrounded by family and friends, Risé and SEIC received a mayoral proclamation dubbing February 21 as Risé Joiner Peters & SouthEast Inspirational Choir Day. This marks the second day of recognition for SouthEast in five years, the first being February 9th; the official SouthEast Inspirational Choir Day.
Prompted again by the Holy Spirit and their many followers, their resurgence is, for lack of a better word, INSPIRING, while pledging to continue singing and supporting young enthusiasts. As SouthEast leans into their predestined gospel race, enduring, carrying and sharing their legacy torch; old and new friends can expect to receive a musical bequest of the best!
