Michael English
Michael English is a gospel and Christian pop singer from North Carolina who sang lead in the Gaither Vocal Band from 1985 to 1994 and again from 2009 to 2013. His first solo album, Michael English (1991), carried the first recording of Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene’s “Mary, Did You Know?” and won him Dove Awards as Male Vocalist and New Artist.
He was born on 12 April 1962 in Kenansville, North Carolina, and raised in North East, near Wallace, singing in his family’s gospel group, the Singing Samaritans, led by his parents, Aubine and Grace English. After high school he joined the Singing Americans; in 1982 he moved to the Goodmans and then the Gospel Couriers before going back to the Singing Americans, with whom he recorded the song most associated with him, “I Bowed on My Knees (And Cried Holy).”
In 1985 he became lead singer of the Gaither Vocal Band, with the former lead, Gary McSpadden, moving to baritone. Bill Gaither encouraged him to go solo, and in 1991, while still singing with the band, he signed with Warner Alliance. His self-titled debut, produced by Brown Bannister, included “Mary, Did You Know?,” whose words Lowry, his bandmate, had written and whose music Greene, then touring with the band, had composed; it reached No. 6 on CCM Magazine’s adult contemporary chart and has since been recorded by hundreds of artists. The album brought him the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards for Male Vocalist and New Artist, and in 1994 he received four more Doves, including Artist of the Year.
He left the Gaither Vocal Band in 1994 and that year signed with Curb Records to sing mainstream pop. His duet with Wynonna Judd, “Healing,” and “Your Love Amazes Me,” from the 1996 album Freedom, reached a pop audience; the latter peaked at No. 10 on the adult contemporary chart. He stayed active in gospel as a producer, co-producing albums by the Martins that won the Dove for Southern Gospel Album of the Year in 1996 and 1997, and in 1996 he sang again with the Singing Americans at the Grand Ole Gospel Reunion and, at J. D. Sumner’s invitation, with the Stamps on the Grand Ole Opry and at the National Quartet Convention. His Curb album Gospel was co-produced by Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts, and he returned to Bill Gaither’s Homecoming videos in 1999.
He rejoined the Gaither Vocal Band as lead singer in 2009, making it a quintet, and stayed five years, announcing on 1 November 2013 that he was leaving to concentrate on solo touring, recording and producing. The North Carolina Music Hall of Fame inducted him in 2016.
