averyfineline

Kyle Boreing and John Scheideman are kicking around an interesting question for gospel music history buffs and other discographic nerds: watershed albums in sg. Like all such “high impact” terms, this one could hang up a pedant like me for several thousand words just defining it, and John and Kyle have their own interpretations and […]

For those who want to, Christian retailers have made it awfully hard, CVH notes, especially for music shoppers.

As far as the Christian bookstore question goes, I decided a number of years ago that loyalty to the concept of Christian brick and mortar retail is no longer valid. Thirty years ago the only […]

Regular reader NG asks a good question:

So what’s the solution to the problem … especially with costs becoming more of an issue these days?

I have no idea. But I can’t believe the answer is to start passing along your costs to your most reliable consumers in such lopsided ways (unless you’re American […]

Evidently, it’s the kind of thing artists would be talking about these days if they talked around a water cooler. According to a friend’s email yesterday:

I’ve heard from a number of groups who are trying this or thinking about [raising cd prices]. Experimenting. With Diesel @ $5.15, concert flats only level (if they indeed […]

Hello everyone, Mark Bishop here. Settle in.

First let me say that this year has been a year of firsts for me. Along with the fantastically talented and creative people that I have worked with at Crossroads and a few of my label mates, we have finished an atypical recording that we believe will bless […]

That’s the new price of Dove Brothers cds, according to Chuck Peters’ ShowPrep, up from $18. Is that how you spell “high fuel prices” in southern gospel? And will people really pay that much for sg music?
Update: a quick email to Crossroads clarifies that the $23 is only for DBQ product purchased through the group. […]

And I’m shocked … as of 10 a.m. EST, not one bid. It claims to be one of a kind, which may or not be true but sort of speaks to our earlier discussion. Plus, check out that cover art. (hat tip, DA)

Fields of Love
Mark Bishop
Crossroads 2008
ALI: 40% (with caveats)

Down on the family farm, the saintly matriarch dies in childbirth. The tiny fractured family that remains – the good pious son trying to keep his mother’s memory alive, the grieving father aggrieved at God for taking his wife too soon – struggles to cope with […]

It’s hard to use my homemade ALI metric on an album that’s essentially a musical. Most of the songs matter in relation to the larger narrative so it’s difficult to say which one’s I’d go back and listen to since that number changes depending if I’m just dipping into the album or listening to it […]

Lately it seems a small but stubbornly disruptive number of comments have tended to be hopelessly off-topic. And I’m not the only one to notice. Two recent comments pretty much lay out the issues succinctly, so let’s go to the tape. On the one hand, off-topic comments that take a thread into the high weeds […]

On Tuesday, I’ll be posting a review of the forthcoming Mark Bishop album (streetdate: June 17), The Fields of Love. It will look and quack (and yes, probably snark) like a regular review. But it will also include an experimental component I’m piloting with Crossroads Music, Bishop’s label, and because, should you choose to involve […]

A new innovation in reviewing from a group of sg bloggers: Check it out. And now I guess we know the answer to the age-old question: how many regular bloggers does it take to write as many words in a single review as I do by myself?

#42: Super shameless cross-product placement promotion - tonight involving Ford hybrids and some select midget humor from - where else - a Mike Myers movie. Tonight’s finale is basically two hours of commercials with some songs ocassionally mixed in.
#43: Having contestants in a solo competition try to sing harmony so the show can whip up […]

If you can tear yourself away from the divorce-o-rama and Gloria Gaither impersonations going on in that most recent, festering open thread, you may have noticed RF’s comment in a more recent thread:

Years ago Guy Penrod pushed Jonathon Pierce right out of a job. Guy had such a big range and it put […]

The Tennessean writes up the Dottie Rambo memorial (hat tip, Jim2).

Is there such a thing? Some people would say, sure: scat. And indeed, Ella Fitzgerald - just to take the readiest example - improvised into existence a whole new vocabulary of the singer’s soul with her scatting abilities, perhaps most famously in this marvelous, classic, dazzling performance of “How High the Moon” from her […]

I’ll be away for a few days so here’s your chance to take the place over, though lately I have the feeling I’m just being allowed the illusion of control and the inmates are really running the asylum. No matter, now may be a good time to do a bit of housekeeping.
David Bruce Murray is […]

From the entertaining Jonathan Sawrie, an insightful take on a potential problem of too many self-proclaimed ministers in song:

Here is what I’ve noticed – countless times.

A gospel performer is on stage and all is going pretty well. The singing is good (most of the time), the crowd is responsive, some humor is intermingled […]

Meet Greater Vision’s new tenor. Actually, we’ve met him before, as the tenor for Tribute quartet, most recently of Harmony Honors fame - the guy who we last saw “prowling about the stage in a half-crouch, wagging his finger at us for emphasis, and generally behaving like a cross between an overheated televangelist and Cat […]

At the toll booth this morning, I gave the attendant a $5 bill for the $2 toll; she gave me back a one- and a two-dollar bill. It’s been so long since I encountered one of these oddities, it actually took me a couple of takes to figure out what was going on (hey, why […]