Wednesday, April 15th, 10:00 a.m., Homegoing Celebration Service, Perfecting Church, 7616 E. Nevada, Detroit, MI 48234 (313.365.3787)
McFall Brothers Funeral Home, 9419 Dexter Ave., Detroit, MI 48206 (313.895.8900) ~ * Flowers will be received at this location.
* The Winans Family wishes to thank everyone for their prayers and continued support. Flowers, donations and well wishes can be sent to Perfecting Church as well.
Los Angeles, CA April 8, 2009: After initially suffering a heart attack and stroke in October 2008, David Winans, Sr. the patriarch of the musical dynasty, The Winans Family, passed away quietly @ 4 p.m. CST on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 in Nashville , TN at the A live Hospice with wife, Delores Winans at his bedside. The Winans Family wish to thank everyone for their prayers and continued support, but would appreciate privacy at this time. Memorial and homegoing services are being planned for Tuesday, April 14 and Wednesday, April 15 at Perfecting Church in Detroit , MI where Winans’ son, Marvin L. Winans, is the Sr. Pastor.
Pop Winans was born David Glenn on April 20, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan. He was raised in the Mack Avenue (COGIC) where his grandfather Isaiah Winans was the pastor. At the age of 18, Winans began singing with the Nobelaires quartet group. A saxophonist and clarinet player, he later joined the Lemon Gospel Chorus in 1950. There he met his future wife Delores Ransom, who sang in the ensemble.
After their 1953 marriage, Winans juggled multiple jobs (car salesman, taxi driver, custodian and barber) to take care of the ten children the couple would eventually have. Aside from his various entrepreneurial activities, Winans began to preach sermons in the late 1960s and was very active in his community. He started a youth organization in 1968. “We had 300 kids, ten little league baseball teams, a track team, arts and crafts. We were trying to do everything we could to help the youth,” he said in 1999.
At the same time, Winans took his own kids with him on various cleaning contracts he landed. They’d help him clean a local McDonalds and a Social Security office. He once said, “All the kids did some kind of work and developed a strong work ethic. I’d strap BeBe on my back and jump on my motorcycle and go to clean up a McDonalds.” It was through odd jobs such as these that Winans was able to raise enough money to finance his sons’ first album.
After gospel legend Andrae Crouch secured a recording contract for The Winans (Michael, Marvin, Carvin and Ronald), Winans acted as their manager for a while.
The Winans became the biggest male gospel quartet of the 1980s. The six-time Grammy winning group is known for songs such as “It’s Time” and “Ain’t No Need to Worry” featuring Anita Baker. Then, their children Bebe & Cece Winans formed a duo and enjoyed #1 platinum R&B/gospel crossover hits such as “Addictive Love” and “I’ll Take You There.” The remaining Winans children such as Daniel Winans, and Angie & Debbie Winans have also enjoyed successful recording careers.
After watching all their children perform for the world, Mom & Pop Winans (as David and Delores are affectionately known), recorded their Grammy-nominated debut CD “Mom & Pop Winans” for Sparrow Records in 1989. Their second album “The Rest of My Life” featured a rocking rendition of “Go Tell It On The Mountain” that was popular in church circles. In 1999, daughter Angie and son-in-law Cedric Caldwell took Pop Winans into the studio and had him record the kind of quartet and bluesy music he grew up on. The solo CD “Uncensored” won him a Grammy nomination and rave reviews. Billboard magazine hailed it as “some of the most compelling music this century has spawned.”
In recent years, Winans and his wife have been fixtures at Benny Hinn crusades and on The Trinity Broadcasting Network’s (TBN) “Praise the Lord” program.
