Bishop Leonard Scott has made a name for himself as The Hymns Professor - a preserver of the traditional gospel music idiom with his soulful renditions of hymns such as “Oh, How I Love Jesus,” “Highway to Heaven,” and “Pass Me Not” that have amassed over 25 million digital streams. His latest and 16th album, Keep Hymns Alive (Tyscot), reveals fresh interpretations of more classic hymns with a Pentecostal-Americana flavor. The nine-track set features the late STAX Records legend, Rance Allen; organ master Bishop C. Shawn Tyson; and a who’s who of popular young gospel minstrels.
Scott has enjoyed a varied career. He started as a funk musician before becoming a dentist. He then continued his successful dental practice while launching Tyscot Records (the oldest operating black-owned gospel label in the world) in the late 1970s and becoming a gospel recording artist in his own right. Since then, he’s also added the title of pastor to his resume.
The Leonard Scott story began on February 28, 1949, when he was born in Indianapolis, IN. He began to play the saxophone in elementary school and by the time he was in college, he was a member of a funk-rock band, The Soul Messengers (not to be confused with the Chicago-based group of the same name). The group opened for acts such as Steppenwolf, The Byrds and the iconic ukulele player Tiny Tim. Although, he was raised in the church, Scott had drifted away from the flock and now jokes that he was a ”devil” in those years. He was attending the Indiana University School of Dentistry and had already had an early marriage and divorce. “My life was in a shambles,” he recalls. One day he was working on someone’s teeth when he felt God calling him to become a born-again Christian. He found his way to the church he was raised in and went to the altar and his life changed that same day.
Firmly back in the church fold, Scott helped the Christ Church Apostolic Radio Choir assemble its first LP. He couldn’t find a record label to release the album so he and his late nephew, Craig Tyson, a gifted musician, formed Tyscot Records (a fusion of their respective last names) in 1976. They released the choir’s Feel Good album in 1977 and while it was not a bestseller; it drew the attention of other aspiring gospel acts. Tyscot, operating out of Scott’s dental practice, began to release those projects and develop a name for itself. “We had a little house,” Scott recalls. “The record label was on the top floor; the dental office was on the first floor and my family lived in the basement.”
After years of just getting by, Tyscot enjoyed its first national hit in 1983 when it released the late Rev. Bill Sawyer & The Christian Tabernacle Concert Choir of Cleveland’s Something Old/Something New album that featured the radio hit “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.” By the end of the Reagan Administration, the company was selling about 20,000 albums a year when Scott’s 19-year-old son Bryant entered the picture in 1988.
The younger Scott was preparing to enter dental school himself when he says God told him to “help your dad” in the music business. He grew up packing records in the family’s garage and knew the business from the bottom-up. “At the time the company wasn’t making enough money to support a full-time salary, but Bryant stuck with it anyway,” says Bishop Scott. “When he came in and took over, it took us out of the red and into the black.”
Over the next few years, the company’s fortunes exploded with the signing of John P. Kee, a former drug dealer who made a demo tape that Bishop Scott reviewed over the telephone. Kee gave the company an infusion of major hits such as “Jesus Is Real,” “It Will Be Alright,” “Wash Me” and “We Walk by Faith.” Just as things were going so well, the company was blindsided by the bankruptcy of its distributor, Spectra. Tyscot had just shipped 40,000 units of Kee’s 1993 We Walk by Faith album that should have brought the company $400,000 in billing. It had been No. 1 on Billboard Magazine’s Top Gospel Albums sales chart when the news broke. “Spectra called to inform us they were filing for bankruptcy,” Bishop Scott recalls. “They told us they were not reorganizing but going completely out of business. The money they owed us was needed to pay our artists, manufacturers, staff, publishers, writers, and other vendors. We prayed and felt that God did not want us to go the bankruptcy route. All of those on our team worked with us and God turned our situation around to not only survive but to thrive.”
Tyscot rounded out the 1990s with signings which would become some of the biggest young acts of the era such as Deitrick Haddon, the Voices of Unity, and VaShawn Mitchell. Furthermore, they signed the legendary Rance Allen Group to a long-term deal after that brought them out of recording retirement.
A gifted artist himself, Bishop Scott began to record solo albums in the late 1980s. “I had never written songs before, but God started giving me songs,” he recalls. Over the years, he’s released sixteen albums. His biggest project yet is 2006’s Hymns & Church Songs Live from Alabama that featured the radio successes “Pentecostal Praise Medley” and “My Body Belongs to God.”
Aside from being a husband and a father of seven, Bishop Scott is the pastor of Rock Community Church in Indianapolis. He’s also written several books on health, and faith. He’s also been an active research fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. He became involved with the issue when his daughter Melanie was diagnosed and successfully beat the disease in 2013. His most recent book is The Ultimate Boost from Within: 31 Days to Health, Wealth, Wholeness and Happiness. (Alpha Omega Publishing Co.).
In recent years, Tyscot has reached new heights in the gospel world with a group of hot young artists who are setting the stage for the millennial generation. Kelontae Gavin, Casey J, Bri Babineaux and Anthony Brown & group therAPy have all delivered No. 1 or Top Ten hits for Tyscot. R&B star and Maroon 5 keyboardist, PJ Morton, has brought the company its first Grammy® Award for his best-selling, Gospel According to PJ, album.
Tyscot’s success is a testament to Bishop Scott’s love of music and ministry. As a result, he was honored with the Dove Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. In 2017, he was inducted into the Stellar Honors Hall of Fame and in 2021, he was awarded the Thomas A. Dorsey Notable Achievement Award. “Some people aren’t in the music business because they love music,” he told Billboard magazine in a 1994 interview. “They’re in it for the business of it – just to make a dollar and I think that anything you’re in, you’re going to have a greater impact if it is in your heart.”