Talking about this “post gospel” crowd as it has been put, there is a huge crowd of listeners that love the old but they love the new. I am finding they not only have The Cathedrals, The McKameys, The Florida Boys and The Chuck Wagon Gang CDS, but they also have Alan Asbury, Larnelle Harris, Steve Green and Ray Boltz. Not to mention Ricky Skaggs, Randy Travis, Sawyer Brown, Alan Jackson & Some Inspo!

Things they are a changing and it is time we Radio Stations and Programmers listen to the listeners for a change and give them what they want and not what we think they should listen to.

Dont get me wrong! We need the Classics! But we can look toward the future while holding on to our past!

You’re disingenuous regarding the comments you made. I’m not stupid.

Here’s what you wrote:
“I can honestly say I wasn’t impressed either. Just another “Hey let’s buy a bus and start a group” thing to me.”

Then, you went on to talk about 964 groups (all of them) sitting at home.

Regards.

Maybe more than any other genre, SG is already fractionalized into several different sub-genres. Most consider SG to BE a sub-genre of Christian Music, - so there are sub-sub-genres within SG! lol

So - there should be no threat of a hostile takeover by Austin’s Bridge. No anarchy.

Last time I checked my post, I didn’t see where I said Austin’s Bridge was “sitting at the house”………..yet. Please don’t put words in my mouth, and read more carefully.

Last time I checked their itinerary, Austins Bridge is not “sitting at the house.”

Considering how serious the owner of this blog takes all things sg, I think my comments are tame.

And, no, I have nothing to gain through additional Austins Bridge CD sales.

And, yes, the point of the song was crystal clear, but averyfineline missed it. You should listen to the song once.

And regarding your response on post #8, if you have to argue ‘the point’ of the song, then it didn’t communicate it very well in the first place.

You mentioned your 17-yr old nephew and his positive response to Austins Bridge. My 16-yr old son heard it and became an instant fan. (That doesn’t always happen, as you might know!)

Coming from a ministry-oriented family, my son appreciated the fact that these guys had been ministers of music in local churches — but have a fairly edgy, sophisticated sound. With young people like Austins Bridge, Lauren Talley, LordSong, and others, I’d venture to say next-gen-sg is in good hands.

Some have speculated what this project represents in relation to other offerings from the Daywind label. Is this a “departure” from SG music as some have asserted? Or is it more of an effort on Daywind’s part to market across genre lines and reach a much larger audience? Will there be a new label group within Daywind?

This project was produced by Bubba Smith. He also did the Crabb’s “Blur the Lines” project for Daywind and has produced a variety of artists from Shirley Caesar, to John Schlitt former lead singer of Petra. (side note: now legendary country music producer Dann Huff who has produced Faith Hill, Rascal Flatt, Carrie Underwood, Rebecca St. James, and Keith Urban was part of John Schlitt’s band when Bubba Smith Produced Schlitt’s first solo project back in 1995)

If Daywind is indeed wanting to expand their markets - and i don’t know one way or the other if this is so - then hiring Bubba Smith is a brilliant move. He has the creds to make it so. When you listen to the debut project from “Austin’s Bridge” you can definitely hear the country influence and the contemporary influence - as mr moderator called it “Rascal Flatts for Christians” - but this in no way makes this CD any less listenable for the SG fan.

In fact, this CD should appeal to anyone who appreciates songs with solid messages, delivered with great high harmonies, a sprinkle of bluegrass, and a sound that is unique yet familiar.

I will confess that I am no song writer, yet to my “non-song writer ear” the material sounds great. The lyrics are easily discernable and offer messages of hope, deliverance, and praise.

To give you an idea of the audience this CD is reaching, my 17 year nephew bought it before I did because he had heard a couple of their songs on their myspace page and he absolutely loved it. He rushed up to me after church one day saying “Austins Bridge is great! I love their new CD.” Then one Sunday monring I was at the radio station and the guy coming in to do the next show came in and asked “was that Allison Krause and Union Station? It was great whoever it is!”

So, go out and buy one if you can find it. I went looking for it on the “release date” and could not find it in 2 different Christian bookstores. The clerks were not familiar with it but gave me the canned answer “we can probably order it for you.” This is being distributed by Word Distribution - I expected one of those instore displays that you practically trip over when you enter the music department. But nothing of the sort. I still haven’t seen any promotional materials for it in the bookstores. Maybe it’s being promoted somewhere else. who knows>?

If Daywind wants this project to reach -any- audience they must do something to give Word Distribution a swift kick in the pants and get it out there on the market.

Kudos to Bubba Smith for some great work. This group will be around a long time - given the right promotion by the label.

I, for one, like the project. I find it somewhat refreshing in it’s youthfulness. They are who they are. They aren’t some young kids trying to wear the “big boy pants” of traditional SG music. They do what they do and it works.

I think that it was gutsy move to include “Native American Prayer” on the project. It works nicely before the Gerald Crabb penned song “History Turned the Page” - one of the best tracks on the Cd and hardly a writer’s throwaway.

Are they Daywind’s attempt to bring the “Boy Band” marketing ploy to SG? Time will tell but for now I think that these young men show promise.

Thanks for the reply. Insofar as a song is often poetry set to a melody, a critic should consider the word-picture being painted by the writer.

Granted, the song is somewhat stylized. But the point here is that God interrupts individual’s lives wonderfully and unexpectedly. Is this song about the details of a conversion? Hardly. Was he chewing gum while walking down the street? Can’t rightly say. The song is about grace.

The songs on this album are well crafted. Averyfineline got it wrong again.

“On the third hand, these are the kinds of finer points that usually dissolve under the immediacy and emotional sweep of the live experience, and I suspect this group does quite well live (“I am Free” has an uptempo-ballad appeal to it and a singer could really sell this story from the stage, now matter how narratively dodgy it is). Herein is a bankable strength. There is plenty of room to make inroads into not just southern gospel but a number of adjacent and more profitable markets if you’re three young, good-looking guys with a gift for close harmony and making Protestant Christianity seem hip but not terribly transgressive (there are a lot of photos on the jacket art in which the boys of AB stare at the camera with studied nonchalance of the vaguely disgruntled who want to appear like they don’t care that they care so much, but the bff4vrish thank-yous in the liner notes redeemably suggest three kids who are mostly just giddy - and rightly so - at the chance to sing together and in front of more than their families or the local youth group). This ability to look like you’d fit in among several different crowds is no small thing, especially in the Christian entertainment world where factionalism and sectarian differences born of snap judgments still hold a great deal of sway (The Collingsworth Family, for instance, has a lot of the right stuff musically, but their holiness couture will in some circumstances send a bunch of misunderstood signals that will always keep them out of certain markets and venues or pigeon-hole them as a novelty act).”

Go get you some help man. You really need some! Honest criticism and commentary doesn’t always have to be trash talk at the level of folks who love to read Russian Literature….