The Island’s top gospel DJ, Kelly Zuill, will be celebrating his 50th anniversary on the air with a special concert next weekend.Over the years Mr Zuill’s morning radio programme ‘The Gospel Train’ has reached scores of listeners and encouraged them to rise past their challenges.And while reflecting on these past five decades he said the career has also been a joy and blessing for him.He told The Royal Gazette: “I look at my work, not as a job, it’s more of a ministry because I feel I minister for God through my programme.“I have many of my listeners who tell me that they are blessed by my programme, and my only answer to them is that ‘He blesses me to bless others’ and as long as I receive God’s blessing, I will continue to help others with my programme.”A gospel concert will be held to celebrate Mr Zuill’s 50 years on the airwaves, at the Earl Cameron Theatre in City Hall, next Saturday at 7.30pm.Performers will include the Mount Zion Male Voice Choir, the Seventh Day Adventist Inspiration Choir, Myrna Outerbridge, Kion Simmons, Rochelle, Neville Zuill, Keith Lee and The Five Keys.A special performance will also be given by international recording artist, Dennis Chin, known for popular hits like ‘Four Days Late’ and ‘Ride Out Your Storm’.Mr Zuill, who is known in the Christian world as ‘Mr Gospel’, got his start in the radio business while he was still a teenager.He had entered a competition, held by local radio station ZFB, to find the next young radio host, and was invited to appear as a guest DJ one Saturday night.Throughout his younger years he would listen to New York based gospel announcers, like Fred Barr, and Rocky Bridges, and when the time came to choose a career in his last year of high school at Sandys Secondary, he decided he wanted to become a radio announcer.In light of his first time on radio, Mr Zuill mapped out his entire radio slot from start to finish — planning what he wanted to say, and the music he wanted to play.His organisation paid off, and his first time on air was considered a success. Mr Zuill was offered a job by the station manager, Montague Shepherd, the following day.A full-time position at the radio station came a little later on, after completing a radio training programme in New York.The night before graduation he received another call from Mr Shepherd; and started off working on radio, from midnight to 6am.Mr Zuill would play other genres of music, but would always finish his show with one gospel selection, in honour of his gospel roots.There was a growing demand for gospel music on the Island back then, and he was eventually given permission to start his first early morning show ‘Gospel at Dawn’. Soon after he started the popular programme, ‘The Gospel Train’.“My choice was gospel because that is what I liked,” he said. “I enjoyed listening to artists like Mahalia Jackson, and James Cleveland, and their music has stayed with my up until this day.“Gospel is a type of music that many people can relate to. There are songs in gospel that can relate to times of bereavement, or to the sick and depressed.“It’s always a gospel song that can give someone that peace of mind that they look for, and gives them that feeling to uplift them, and carry them through. There’s a message in every song and it has reached so many of my listeners every day.”He said he is “most proud” of the fact that his programme has positively touched the lives of so many people on the Island.He has received countless calls over the years from people who may have been feeling depressed, or who were in the hospital, or had just lost a loved one, who say a selection he played brought them through that difficult situation.“There have been times I will dedicate a selection to a particular listener I know is going through a trial, and at that very second they phone in and request that same, exact selection I am playing.“That has happened a few times on my programme,” he said.He said one of his most cherished moments over the past five decades was seeing the success of his very first ‘Gospel Treat to Mothers’ in Bernard’s Park. The special programme is still going strong.Mr Zuill has been honoured both locally and overseas for his contributions in radio. In June 1989, he was honoured at the 6th National and International Gospel DJs Conference in Memphis, Tennessee; he was also awarded an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) award in the 2010 Queen Birthday Honours.He said he owed his regular listeners a sincere ‘thank you’ for sticking with him through all these years. He also wanted to thank God for helping to make so many of his dreams come true.“God is the one that makes it all possible,” he said. “So no matter if the other stations have more listeners or not, my station to me will always be the #1 station because we get to honour God.”Mr Zuill can be heard on ‘Bermuda’s Inspiration Station’ — ZBM 105FM — each morning from Monday to Friday at 6am; and on Sunday afternoons from 1pm until 6pm. Tickets for the concert can be purchased for $50 from the Music Box in Hamilton.