The Tri -City Singers take another hit as the death of elite vocalist, Elder Daryl Coley,has just been confirmed. The elder battled diabetes for a time and was in fact winning the battle for some years until recently when it was reported that he decided to decline his last treatment.
I met Elder Daryl Coley at the Tri City4.com live recording. He was actually the first person I ran into backstage. When he looked into my star-struck eyes, the first thing he told me was that God healed him from cancer and how he should have been dead. That was what he wanted me to know about him. This was the year 2000.
Not too long after he proclaimed this to me and I began to wander about, I heard rumblings and laughter all around me that I soon found was linked to Elder Coley’s incessant love of fried chicken, and how he required some after every venue. Hilarious!
A few years later I got tickled when I found an album he produced for a group called Here II Praise. The very last song on the album was a song about nothing other than fried chicken.
If you go back and listen to some of Daryl Coley’s music, you will find a sound and skill that no one has been able to duplicate. The song most of us know him for is When Sunday Comes from Donald Lawrence and the Tri City Singers hit CD, Bible Stories.
Another song, Heal the Land, is a perfect display of the vocal skill coupled with the spiritual conviction Elder Coley had for the word of God.
