"I Have Decided To Make Jesus My Choice" (1986) Lecresia Campbell

This is track 7 from the 1986 album entitled "Draw Me Near".
Written by Harrison Johnson
Lecresia Mable Campbell was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 30, 1962. As a child, Lecresia wanted to be a schoolteacher. After receiving her Bachelor Degree in Applied Voice from Tougaloo College in the Tougaloo area of Jackson, Mississippi, she taught elementary school for 8 years. She took a leave of absence from teaching to pursue her passion of singing.

She made her solo recoding debut in 1987 with the album "Draw Me Nearer". She recorded her rendition of "Perfect Praise (How Excellent)" with Walt Whitman and the Soul Children of Chicago in 1990, which took the nation by storm. She recorded "Stand Still (Until His Will Is Clear) in 1992 and "The Change Will Come" in 1994, both with the Wilmington/Chester Mass Choir. In 1998, she recorded her second solo project entitled "Even Me", which hit the nation by storm and earned her a Stellar Award nomination for Best Female Artist. In 2002 she recorded "Magnify" with the Gospel Heritage Praise & Worship Conference Mass Choir. She recorded "Safety" with the GMWA Mass Choir LIVE in Kansas City in 2004. She became a background vocalist for Vanessa Bell Armstrong and later shared the stage as a solo artist with artists such as Larnelle Harris, Donnie McClurkin, Mary Mary, Gerald Levert, Stephanie Mills, and a host of others.

Lecresia began captivating audiences in musical plays such as Dreamgirls where she starred as Effie. She performed in two of David Talbert's hit shows Mr. Right Now and His Woman, His Wife. Both productions toured the country performing to sold out audiences for 3 years. She also played TV Judge Greg Mathis' mother in "Tell It To The Judge".

In the summer of 2016 she suffered a stroke. She passed away on Thursday morning, September 29, 2016. Her transition was only days away from her release from Emory Rehabilitation Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Her cause of death was a pulmonary embolism.