averyfineline

Via Daniel Mount, I see the Crabbs are staging a “reunion” at NQC. Huh? The engines on their buses haven’t even had time to cool down since the family’s “retirement” and we’re already having a reunion? This seems like a fine example of taking a good idea, running it into the ground, and breaking it […]

That’s the title of Sinclair Lewis’s insightful – if also deeply jaundiced – 1922 novel that sends up celebrity evangelists and fundamentalist Christianity in the early part of the 20th century. I teach it whenever I can (most recently in a religion and sex course … Lewis understood all too well that many popular Christian […]

Via reader CH, a study from the Annenberg School for Communication’s Lear Center on politics and Christian entertainment. Lots of interesting stuff (and plenty of silly things too, to be honest … the red, blue and purple oversimplifications are grating), especially in light of some of the conversation we’ve had before about the place of […]

Kyle Boreing digs up the stuff of gospel music folklore: a youtube clip of the Cathedrals at the Dove Awards with their shortlived tenor, Kurt Young (Boreing explains the history and has some good commentary on the video). No one really remembers Kurt Young, and yet everyone seems to remember that legendary ending at the […]

Thankfully, only the title of this album sounds like a show at Branson.

Whitmire’s cd of old-timey gospel standards has been in my car for the past however many weeks (months?) since Mark Lowry was in town, and it’s captivated me, even though finally it leaves me disappointed (more on that in a moment). […]

I’m teaching an advanced creative writing course this semester on blogging (which is one of the many things keeping me from actually attending to my own blog, as it turns out). And so I’m thinking a lot about blogs and blogging in slightly deeper ways than is usual (or perhaps is even healthy).

No […]

For whatever reason, I’m thinking a lot lately about all those embarassing / shameful / repellant / underhanded / scheming things about gospel music that we all just love to hate. Such as …

The so-called Nashville conversion: this involves a performer (usually one whose career is on the rocks or whose popularity needs a jolt […]

From reader DD:
We can all moan and complain about the state of SG music, but in reality it comes down to the fans. People who expect a group to show for “love offering” (and there is little love in it), but this same schmo will crab and complain when he doesn’t get his annual 3-4% […]

Sorry to have left you hanging so long with that airplanes post (for the record, I don’t really care how the Pfeifers get from point A to point B, but making the purchase of a plane a ministerial priority strikes me as way too Oral Robertsy). I meant to follow up sooner and got waylaid […]

Via reader AG, I notice that the Pfeifers are soliciting money from fans to help them pay for an airplane.
Discuss.

Reader JM writes:
Having monitored and occasionally contributed to the various discussions on this blog since mid-2007, I find myself mystified by the constant split represented by most of the posters. My wonderment specifically pertains to the honesty vs. righteousness battle.Seemingly, if my understanding is accurate, the blog master (Doug) has decided that this blog should […]

The Jeff and Sheri Easter discussion got me thinking about David Bruce Murray’s discussion of themed concerts: DBM’s point is well taken that there aren’t really many bonafide themed tours in sg, unless Gaither’s count. Instead, there are mostly a shifting constellation of artists who tour together sometimes under a common promotional title.
But the Easters […]

Coincidence that Jeff and Sheri Easter are releasing a family-fest album drawing on her Lewis connections and the Easter name at precisely the time Charlotte Penhollow Ritchie leaves the group and Jeff and Sheri’s kids step into more prominent roles? (Chuck Peters reports that this is “said to be the richest collection of family and […]

Talking about (and reading Joel Lindsey on) Dan Fogelberg reminded of that famous line of his, “my life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man,” from “Leader of the Band,” about the influence of Fogelberg’s father on his life and music.
The psychological and emotional density of the line is fairly self-evident, but […]

While I was for holidays, I was mooching a car from some family and there was a Dan Fogelberg greatest hits cd in the player (I have family from Peoria, where Fogelberg grew up … in fact, the car I was driving belongs to a guy who bummed around with one of Fogelberg’s brother, … […]

Marketing guru and all-around economic soothsayer Seth Godin has a great piece up on “things you can learn from the music business (as it falls apart)” (hat tip, MG). My favorite money quote:

2. Copy protection in a digital age is a pipe dream
If the product you make becomes digital, expect that the product you make […]

Via David Bruce Murray, die-hard gospel-music history buffs might want to check out Routledge Press’s Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music. I haven’t worked with this particular text before, but Routledge has several volumes on music, especially a multi-volume set on the psychology of music, that I’ve found helpful and comprehensive.
The cover suggests that as per […]

From a face and name most of you would immediately recognize:

Just read your post talking about union players on southern gospel sessions. Well, there are a couple of reasons why [so few union players work in sg]. Some of them are the very same reason why I won’t even think of touring ever again in […]

Charles Brady’s comment about the presence (and often absence) of union players in sg studios reminds me of a related topic: eastern European orchestras. Is their use popular outside of southern gospel? Are there rules or contractual obligations that prohibit more mainstream genres from regularly outsourcing orchestral work to small ex-Soviet bloc countries? Or have […]

So they’ve signed with Vine Records. First blush, these seems like great news. But I decided to leave my champagne corked, since it seems pretty clear that the debut project from the deal will be some Praise and Worship album the Nelons have more or less completed before signing with Vine.

No matter how […]