The greater Chapel Hill community recently saw one of its own inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. While she now works in Carrboro’s CVS and lives in Durham, Debbie May had a three-decade career in the entertainment industry as a television producer, tour manager and talent manager, and was honored for her work earlier this month.
May describes growing up as a “church girl” in Chicago and being surrounded by gospel music, but she did not quite envision working in that space. Despite regularly singing in her uncle’s choir, she knew she preferred to be behind the scenes and ultimately pursued a focus of arts and entertainment management in college. She made the switch from owning a shoe store in Bloomington, Indiana to the music and talent industry after becoming friendly with a recording company that had signed Keith Pringle and Rev. James Moore – both established stars in the gospel music world. May began to manage both and developed a good reputation as both of their careers continued to grow.
One day, Moore was asked to perform on the “Bobby Jones Gospel” television program – and May felt inspired and excited after seeing the entire TV production. The show was one of the original pieces of programming on the BET channel as it was beginning in the early 1980s. It was filmed in front of a live audience and featured rotating guests to perform gospel songs, with Bobby Jones effectively working as the emcee between performances and often leading his choir. Before ending in 2015, “Bobby Jones Gospel” was the longest running on cable television and served as a star-making vehicle for many gospel artists.
One of May’s friends, Derek Lee, was the music director of the program and advocated for her to join their production team. At first, she volunteered to help and paid her own way to attend tapings in order to learn how it worked – with her first role assigning artists their dressing rooms. Before long, though, May was elevated to working as an on-set producer directly with Bobby Jones and her connections with artists, managers and other gospel music leaders began to grow.
“It was the catalyst to many things for many people in gospel,” May says of the BET program. “You only had one national TV show in the world that carried gospel music into people’s houses every week. And that was “Bobby Jones Gospel.” So, you lived to get your song, get your person onto “Bobby Jones Gospel,” and guess what: that’s where I was.”
May continued to find success as a talent scout and manager – including signing the young group God’s Property and making them the background choir of “Bobby Jones Gospel” – before another opportunity arose. In the late 1990s, she met promoter Al Wash, who ran ALW Entertainment and oversaw national tours. Wash saw the success gospel music was having and decided to platform it further. He recruited May to help run his “Power ‘98” tour and then again for “Shout 2000,” and she decided to keep that partnership going while also working for Bobby Jones. Eventually, ‘tour manager’ became another offshoot of May’s career. All the while, May did this with two children – balancing parenthood with the sacrifices necessitated by a busy schedule.
“I was kind of in two directions,” says May of following those professional responsibilities. “I was in television, and then gospel music got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. It began to move from churches to theaters to arenas. So, I had the pleasure of watching this [industry grow]. It’s like [being there for] the building of a car, and now the car is a whole transportation service.”
Jones and May remain so close despite the television show wrapping up – so much so that they supported each other when their mothers passed. May moved back to Chicago to help care for her mother across seven years before her death in January 2019. After that, May describes it feeling natural to step away from the gospel music show business and to start a new chapter.
How did May pick the Triangle after deciding to wind down her production efforts? She said it was easy: not only had she lived in the area before when her son – former UNC men’s basketball star and national champion Sean May – was attending Carolina, but it’s now where several of her grandchildren are as well since Sean is on the program’s coaching staff. Debbie says spending time and seeing the kids grow up was a major motivator to transition away from the gospel music industry.
May said the college-centric, small-town feel reminded her of her years in Bloomington raising her boys and decided to start something new based on what was available. And after taking an operations manager role at the CVS pharmacy in Carrboro, she helps lead her new team of co-workers. May says the role feels more like a job while the gospel music and touring industry felt like a career, but she enjoys this new stage of life while still helping coordinate a handful of local events.
“I don’t have a formula, but I do have an equation,” she says of finding and creating professional success. “And I think that, number one, you never forget the person who opened that first door for you. And in that opening…when you’re able to pick up little pieces and nuggets [of knowledge] along the way, you can still move forward and not forget what happened [earlier] to get you forward.”
Debbie May (seated, left) with family members and friends at the 2025 Gospel Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony in St. Louis. (Photo via Debbie May.)
The Gospel Music Hall of Fame was founded by Monica Butler – who May recruited to be her assistant after connecting through the Gospel Music Workshop of America and Bobby Jones Gospel. May describes her as a “pacifier” during the height of her work producing and touring. After the organization inducted its initial classes in 2023 and 2024 – which included both Bobby Jones and Al Wash – Butler called May to tell her she was chosen for the 2025 class. May received the call during a shift at CVS, and her past and present collided to build into celebration.
May joined the 100 other members of this year’s class for an induction ceremony in St. Louis on Sep. 6. She says the event was a remarkable reunion with not just members of the industry, but many friends and family who made the trip to support her. And while the initial call from Butler about making it into the Hall of Fame was special, May says the follow-up conversation was equally as touching.
“Just the fact that [Monica] knew I was there,” she says, “and she knew I was the person who struck the match for her [was meaningful]. Her first question was, ‘What did you think [of the event]?’ That meant a lot to me… that she would want to know my thoughts, that it still matters.
“Of course I had nothing [bad] to say,” May adds, saying she did her best to experience the ceremony as an attendee rather than a producer. “But what I did tell her is, ‘Hey, if you need me to help you, if you need anything from me, I’m available.’”
Featured photos via Debbie May.
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