It’s quite obvious to many observers that a lot of people are still cashing in on Elvis, by touting how they were always in his enterage. Frankly, I always though J D & The Stamps sounded better doing their Elvis tribute than they did singing gospel. But it appeared JD was one of those wanting to cash in.

And maybe there was nothing wrong with making that money off his dead friend. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with Armond, Terry, Sherman, Joe, and the current Stamps making money doing Elvis tributes. There are a lot of other people doing it, too. In fact, there was some Elvis tribute concert at one of the colleges here in Nashville, last week. SOMEBODY made some money off of it. And I’m sure it wasn’t just Lisa Marie.

And this may be the way some people have to support their gospel habit. A lot of people hold down day jobs (banks, funeral homes, sales jobs, warehouses, phone company, whatever), and preach or sing the gospel for little or no pay on the weekends. That’s always been the case, dating back to the apostle Paul’s tentmaking.

But whoever writes the bio’s for the websites need to get their facts straight.

Joe Moscheo didn’t join the original Imperials until Henry Slaughter left. He’s wrong to say he was involved with the “original group” in any fashion. Also, the Imperials have only had two bass singers. One is Armond Morales, who was their only bass singer for the first 39 years the Imperials existed and the other is Ian Owens who currently sings bass. Moscheo was never the group’s bass singer of record. I’m not saying he never sang at all with them, but his primary role was that of piano player.

What Moscheo, Blackwood and Andrus are doing is no different than it would be if Brian Free, Mike LeFevre, and Ivan Parker billed themselves as Gold City.

I can’t fully fathom why these old guys want to re-attach themselves to a legacy they ALL left 30 years ago. They’re making it increasingly difficult for their successors to carry on the legacy they worked so hard to build at one point in time.

Wasn’t Armond Morales the bass in that original Imperials group? And didn’t Joe play piano for them?

I know it seems presumptuous for me to suggest that The Imperials don’t know who was in what position in The Imperials back then but it sure seems to me that they got that wrong on their own website.

Daywind Records has, for the last several years, had dual distribution through New Day and Word. Most of their (especially s/g, but not exclusively) projects were available to stores through both channels. That agreement with Word has ended. Most of the existing product Word had will still be available from both distributors for a while. New product will not be available from Word.

Word never had anything to do with Daywind’s A&R, recording process, radio promotions, award nominations, etc. They only dealt with retailers, primarily the chain stores (Family, Lifeway, et al).

So, Jim2 is correct in stating there is no relationship between Canaan and Daywind. Only that retailers can buy some of both labels’ product from the same supplier.

Daywind/NewDay a dead-end?? No Way!! They offer artists a real shot at getting quaility distribution on a scale I don’t think is offered anywhere else in Southern Gospel.

Now, they should not to be confused with the Morales/Will/Hiner “Classic Imperials” that sing together occasionally. www.classicimperials.com

Not sure they did any better with the Hoppers project than anyone else would have, so we’ll see what they do with Mike & Co.

Also, I’m not sure I understand what you meant by “Daywind deadend”, but it’d be interesting to hear your thoughts. I thought Daywind had a pretty good track record.

I agree with a couple of things you say, they should be easier to work with than an already established “big name”, like Gold City. They have name recognition within the industry with Mike.

Other than that, I think you were more critical than necessary on a quality group.

What I figured they would do is the smart thing - sign a few groups they believed would be bankable and help them produce good music. It’s more about expanding the market and much much less about resurrecting the Canaan of years gone by. It also gives them a bigger reason to, one day, re-release some of that old stuff that never was on CD.

I think the LeFevre Quartet, from the few times I’ve seen video clips and the audio clips I’ve heard, is a good group that has a good focus. I know some may not care for their most recent album which is largely P&W songs - but I personally have listened to the audio clips and I think it’s fantastic. It, somewhat like the latest project from Poet Voices, will give them some more artillery for a larger amount of churches, which I’m sure is their larger focus.

This type of music probably lends themselves to more of what Canaan (or Word) would be looking for.

As far as David Staton’s hair - easy solution, buy some more (or less actually). he he he