Tony & The Essential Band
Memphis, Tennessee, United States | SELF
Music
Press
“Tony Dickerson is gifted and crafted to hear from God and create amazing stories of song to inspire and encourage generations. His songwriting talent has made and will continue to make a difference to the world.”
Tracy Bethea
Assistant Program Director/Music Director WHAL-Hallelujah FM (Memphis,TN)
Stellar Award Winning Radio Personality
President ~ The Tracy Bethea Agency
“Tony Dickerson is a writer for this time and age. He has songs that are not only musical but have lyrical content that makes you evaluate any situation you may face and encourage you to strive harder. As a young musician, I am honored to call him a mentoring figure.”
Tim Mason
Keyboardist and music director
“My CD project was intentionally geared to have mass appeal. Tony was amazingly versatile enough not only to share two songs, which represented both the gospel quartet genre and the contemporary gospel music genre, but he is also gifted and vocally strong enough to have sang background on one of the songs!”
Dr. Kevin E. Stafford
Senior Pastor
Zion Baptist Evangelistic Temple (ZBET)
Compton, California
“If there was ever an ocular personality in ministry that knows how to lexicography Gods word through melodious intonation, it is Tony Dickerson. His ability to capture the Gospel without compromise in song fuels the artist to exhort the nations. It was a plum pleasing pleasure to work with one of the greatest writer/composers in the world Mr. Tony Dickerson on my sophomore project Free at Last. I look forward to more to come from this talented earthen vessel.”
Bishop Charles Bond Jr.
Gospel recording artist
- Tony Dickerson, songwriter
“Tony Dickerson is gifted and crafted to hear from God and create amazing stories of song to inspire and encourage generations. His songwriting talent has made and will continue to make a difference to the world.”
Tracy Bethea
Assistant Program Director/Music Director WHAL-Hallelujah FM (Memphis,TN)
Stellar Award Winning Radio Personality
President ~ The Tracy Bethea Agency
“Tony Dickerson is a writer for this time and age. He has songs that are not only musical but have lyrical content that makes you evaluate any situation you may face and encourage you to strive harder. As a young musician, I am honored to call him a mentoring figure.”
Tim Mason
Keyboardist and music director
“My CD project was intentionally geared to have mass appeal. Tony was amazingly versatile enough not only to share two songs, which represented both the gospel quartet genre and the contemporary gospel music genre, but he is also gifted and vocally strong enough to have sang background on one of the songs!”
Dr. Kevin E. Stafford
Senior Pastor
Zion Baptist Evangelistic Temple (ZBET)
Compton, California
“If there was ever an ocular personality in ministry that knows how to lexicography Gods word through melodious intonation, it is Tony Dickerson. His ability to capture the Gospel without compromise in song fuels the artist to exhort the nations. It was a plum pleasing pleasure to work with one of the greatest writer/composers in the world Mr. Tony Dickerson on my sophomore project Free at Last. I look forward to more to come from this talented earthen vessel.”
Bishop Charles Bond Jr.
Gospel recording artist
- Tony Dickerson, songwriter
Discography
Tony B. Dickerson "I Need Him" featuring Perfection & Minister Darrel Petties, Significant Message, Tony B. Dickerson feat. The Essential Band, Tis The Season, Crying Out feat. Patrick Dodd
Photos
Bio
They’re the acapella doo-wop group serenading guests at a wedding reception at Earnestine and Hazel’s. They’re the band getting the kids off their feet at a high school awards day. They’re the stage-packing spectacle at Cooper-Young or River Arts Festival. Depending on the day and the way the wind blows, you might see endless variations , but there is no mistaking Tony Dickerson’s Essential Band – and they are a musical concept like no other.
Dickerson founded the Essential Band in 2005 – but the word “band” doesn’t really do justice to the vision behind this group. The Essential Band is a force, a network of artists who come together to make a unique sound and build up audiences with positive, encouraging music that traverses genres seamlessly. Within the Essential team are singers, songwriters, instrumentalists, sound engineers, lighting and video technicians. Each individual is essential to the musical experience this band creates, and with a broad spectrum of musical backgrounds, talents, skills and gifts, this is a group whose value as a whole is most certainly greater than the sum of its parts.
The band isn’t limited by a genre or a style of music, performing original songs and covers that range from gospel and inspirational to old school soul, upbeat pop, jazz or funk. The only uniting factor from one song to the next is the mission: positivity, love, encouragement.
The band’s motto is “Achieving Social Unity Within Musical Diversity,” and the repertoire of styles and range of talents represented in the group illustrates that slogan perfectly. The group aims to convey the message of love, unity, encouragement and liberty to all mankind.
Not long ago a local school principal saw The Essential Band perform at Cooper-Young Festival and was so inspired by their theme song, “I’m Essential,” that he brought the song and The Essential Band back to his students and his school. When Tony and his team showed up to play for the students, they had no sooner struck the first notes of “I’m Essential” than the teenagers were out of their seats, dancing, clapping and singing every single word.
It’s that kind of inspiration that makes it clear: There is something that resonates about these voices and this sound. It’s something intangible – something essential.
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