Gospel artists come together for Maurice Rogers benefit concert in Lumberton

LUMBERTON – On June 17, 2022, gospel keyboardist, music director and producer Maurice Rogers went into cardiac arrest and straight into life support.

Two years later, Rogers – a nationally known commodity in the gospel music field – is confined to a wheelchair.

The 51-year-old, whose speaking ability is minimal, is a Robeson County native and now lives with his mother in Lumberton where he continues his rehabilitation.

According to family and friends, doctors are saying that he will continue to make strides in continuing to return to his old self.

On Jan. 26, a benefit concert is being held for Rogers, “A Night of Love, Healing and Support,” at the A.D. Lewis Auditorium at Robeson Community College in Lumberton. The program is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

“Celebrating the Maestro,” reads the program for the gospel all-star concert.

The college is at 5160 North Fayetteville Road.

Admission is $20, and all proceeds will be going to Rogers’ rehabilitation, said his lifelong friend and fellow musician, Glen McMillan.

“Maurice has worked with a lot of national people. He’s done some really incredible work. Some really great work. I went the academic route, but he went the performance route,” McMillan said Wednesday by phone from New York City. “I went to school to get a master’s; he went to the school of getting onstage, traveling, performing. Even though I went the church route, we always came back together. We always made the connection.”

McMillan, another Robeson County native son and currently professor of music for the City University of New York and minister of music for the historic Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York, is spearheading the special concert on behalf of his old friend.

“It’s a coming together for his healing,” he said. “We all love him and support him as he’s recuperating.”

And as McMilllan noted, “He’s from that area.”

The scheduled artists on the concert bill will most likely be performing some original songs, according to McMillan. “Pretty much most of these artists will be doing material that they have composed.”

For fervent gospel music fans, it’s going to be a star-studded night.

Among them will be gospel singer Kim Person, who has worked with Rogers on projects. “She’s going to be highlighted on the program, as well,” said McMillan.

Person is a Billboard charting, award-winning artist and a two-time Stellar Award nominee for New Artist of the Year and Contemporary Female Vocalist of the Year. She’s from Lumberton and now lives in Raleigh.

Other featured performers booked for the benefit include Diana Washington Collins, Deonte McNeill and Restoration, Will Harris, Pat Crawford and One Spirit, David and Tiffany Spencer, saxophonist Luke Waldron, Darrell and Kia-Tanna, and Anthony Sutton & Fresh Wind.

In years past, Rogers has worked, either behind the production board in the studio or as music director for “The First Lady of Gospel Music,” Shirley Caesar, as well as gospel leader Kurt Carr, who was the late Rev. James Cleveland’s pianist and musical director from 1986 through the pastor’s death in 1991.

His musical involvement over the years has also included gospel stalwarts Dorothy Norwood and John P. Kee. “The biggest thing,” McMillan said of Rogers, “is working with that caliber of artist.”

“He’s very well known in the gospel industry,” said Rogers’ wife, Gwen. “He has produced major artists. He’s played with some of the main artists onstage. He’s played alongside many artists.”

“He’s in a wheelchair and gradually coming back. He doesn’t talk but he’s coming back,” McMillan said.

Rogers’ wife said her husband cannot believe “the predicament that he’s in.

“That he’s in this season of his life. Where his abilities have been limited, which cause him a little bit of depression from time to time,” Gwen Rogers said. “But he knows he has to push even more to get back where he was or to be better. It’s gonna take some time. More time than he wants it to be.

“With his mind being positive in his thinking, in conversation with prayer, and perseverance and going into therapy working hard, things can get back to normal,” she surmised.

Despite their age differences – Rogers is five or six years older than McMillan – the two men grew up together.

“We come out of the same church in Lumberton,” he said of the Pentecostal United Holy Church in Lumberton. ”I went on to the School of Music, and he went for music, as well. I’ve known him from when he was younger. I remember the first time I met him, and he was 6 or 7 years old and visiting this church.

“They were having gospel singing. He walked up on the drums and started playing. Everybody was mesmerized,” McMillan recalled. “I could have been around 12 or 13. That was the first time I saw him. Later on, we began to work together. He was in my youth choir. He started off as a drummer, and he could play piano. He started playing piano, and the first kind of job was at McCormick Chapel AME.”

Rogers started taking piano lessons from Louise Lassiter, who is well known in the Lumberton community.

“Then he just went on to a whole ‘nother ball game,” said McMillan. “He started with classical music. He had lessons with her and then he was big with the Lumberton High School Marching Band. He was in charge of the drum section. That’s when he started pumping it with drums. Then he went on to keyboards. Then St. Augustine’s (University) to study music.

“He started going all over the country with musicians and serving as music director for them,” he added. “He’s been known as a hitmaker, producing works by composers. He worked with a plethora of musicians.”