{"id":10588,"date":"2020-07-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=10588"},"modified":"2020-07-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=10588","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Ellis, radio host"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

His daughter Adina Ellis Cato said the cause was complications from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Ellis played a wide range of gospel artists on the show.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

“ ‘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.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/p>

<\/p>\n \n \n

<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[46,7019,15],"tags":[1051,114,8051,113,792,6231,6710,1145,6709,6224,5577,8304,6434,6435],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/wp-content\/uploads\/imageholder\/uploads\/Patrick_Ellis.png?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3488,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3488","url_meta":{"origin":10588,"position":0},"title":"Ellis Marsalis Jr, jazz pianist","date":"April 2, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. \u2011 an American jazz pianist and educator \u2013 died from Covid-19 complications on April 1, 2020. \u00a0 Active since the late 1940s, Marsalis came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of a musical family, with sons Branford and Wynton also becoming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1647,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=1647","url_meta":{"origin":10588,"position":1},"title":"Troy Sneed, gospel musician","date":"April 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Troy Lenard Sneed Jr. an American gospel musician \u2013 died on April 27, 2020 due to Covid-19 complications. He started his music career on November 7, 1999, with the release of Call Jesus by Malaco Records. His second album, Bless That Wonderful Name, was released by Savoy Records in 2001.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3975,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3975","url_meta":{"origin":10588,"position":2},"title":"Rick May, voice actor & theatrical performer","date":"April 9, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Rick May \u2011 a Canadian-American voice actor and theatrical performer, director, and teacher from Seattle, Washington \u2013 died of Covid-19 on April 8, 2020. May provided the English-language voice for Peppy Hare in Star Fox 64 and Soldier in Team Fortress 2, among other video games. May was born on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3299,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3299","url_meta":{"origin":10588,"position":3},"title":"Joe Diffie, singer","date":"March 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Joe Logan Diffie \u2011 an American country music singer \u2013 succumbed to Covid-19 on March 29, 2020. \u00a0 After working as a demo singer in the mid 1980s, he signed with Epic Records' Nashville division in 1990. Between then and 2004, Diffie charted 35 singles on the Billboard Hot Country\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2609,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2609","url_meta":{"origin":10588,"position":4},"title":"Leila Benitez-McCollum, journalist","date":"April 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Leila Benitez-McCollum \u2011 a Filipino-born American radio and television host, presenter, journalist and broadcaster \u2013 died on April 9, 2020 from Covid-19 complications. \u00a0 Benitez, who was nicknamed as the \"first lady of Philippine television\", became a household name in the Philippines from the 1950s to the early 1970s due\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11676,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=11676","url_meta":{"origin":10588,"position":5},"title":"Phil Valentine, Radio Host","date":"August 24, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A conservative talk radio host from Tennessee who had been a vaccine skeptic until he was hospitalised from COVID-19 has died. He was 61, reported news agency PTI. Nashville radio station SuperTalk 99.7 WTN confirmed Phil Valentine\u2019s death in a tweet August 21. Valentine had been a skeptic of coronavirus\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Profiles"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Phil-Valentine.jpg?fit=1200%2C749&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10588"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}