Patrick Ellis, a popular Washington DC gospel broadcaster, died on July 16 at a hospital in Annapolis due to Covid-19 complications. He was 77 years old.
For five hours each Sunday morning, Patrick Ellis led a personal communion over the Washington airwaves, playing a mix of classic and contemporary gospel music while helping his listeners get ready for church and prepare for the coming week, reported The Washington Post.
In one of the country’s leading gospel markets, Mr. Ellis hosted 96.3 WHUR-FM’s Sunday morning gospel program for more than four decades, building a devoted audience that made his “Gospel Spirit” show the most popular program in its time slot.
His daughter Adina Ellis Cato said the cause was complications from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Mr. Ellis was a cornerstone of Howard University’s WHUR, one of the nation’s few university-owned commercial radio stations. He joined as a student volunteer shortly after its founding in 1971 and became the station’s production director in 1986.
Ellis played a wide range of gospel artists on the show.
While still working in production five days a week, Mr. Ellis became the anchor of what was then known as “Sunday Morning Gospel,” coming into the studio on Sundays for his 6 a.m. broadcasts. Launched in 1979, the program made him one of the most prominent figures in Washington’s gospel scene, alongside broadcasters like Lucille Banks Robinson Miller of WYCB-AM, Cal Hackett of WUST-AM and fellow WHUR host Jacquie Gales Webb.
“ ‘Keep it simple’ is my motto,” Mr. Ellis told The Washington Post in 1983. “I lay the foundation and you take it from there, whether you’re Pentecostal, Protestant, Catholic or something else.”
Mr. Ellis played a wide range of gospel artists, including Yolanda Adams, James Cleveland, Al Green, Richard Smallwood, Vickie Winans and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, sometimes slipping in a pop song like Michael Jackson’s version of “Gone Too Soon.”