averyfineline

He’s leaving Gold City, according to the group’s MySpace page:
Gold City has announced that Steve Ladd has resigned his position as tenor vocalist. Steve has been with the group for almost 5 years. He will be taking a job as worship leader in a church near Gadsden, AL. (h/t, CG).
His voice was never […]

I’m elbow deep in term papers and final exams, so you’ll have to make do with the wisdom of others. This, from one of today’s better comments:
If a CCM artist is copying a secular cousin, how does that make their genre worse than SG, who has been copying itself for the last 60 years?
To me, […]

I TiVo’d the Doves to watch later, and listened to the different genres with rather more pleasure than dismay.
Contemporary Christian Music is supposed to be CONTEMPORARY music, and that will slice across all genres, I would think. While some folks, the author of this blog included, will fuss and fume grumpishly about the “copycat” nature […]

I confess that in some ways I don’t feel qualified to comment on the Doves beyond 140 characters of length. For one thing, my awareness of CCM is peripheral at best, and more substantively, I just don’t like most of what I hear.
As I wrote during the show, “I don’t consider myself old fashioned but […]

Mostly because I feel bad that people keep “following” me on twitter and I haven’t tweeted in months, I’m going to try twittering the Dove awards tonight. Not sure how it will go. I last tweeted from NQC back in September but found it a mixed experience over all. I use my Blackberry to post, […]

Is southern gospel becoming the place where aging Baby Boomer performers from country music go to maintain an adoring fan base? The Oaks certainly seem to have found a second wind with sg fans. And Barbara Mandrell was honored just this week by the Southern Gospel Music Guild for … something.
The official reason: “Barbara Mandrell […]

Since I’ve taken shots after the years at the SN’s website (most recently noting the apparent disinvestment in the existing site),  it’s probably worth pointing out (via Daniel Mount) that the SN currently has a redesigned beta site up.

After reading this story, a reader wrote in to wonder what would happen if an Ivy Leaguer infiltrated an sg group (h/t, TM). Heheh.

This year I wasn’t able to make it to Nashville in time for the Tuesday night concert hosted by the Southern Gospel Music Guild last night. But a few folks who were there have promised to send in some thoughts. I’ll be posting these as they arrive.
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Some traveling is going to require a hiatus this week. Talk amongst yourselves. Some seeds for the discussion:

Bill Gaither will host a sing-a-long at NQC. The more things change …

I forgot to mention a week or so ago that there’s a new talent and management agency out there operated by none other than the inimitably […]

From a new novel about  music and the muse:
Two months ago, she was raw and unblended; tonight she was reasonably effective; someday very soon she would be in danger of marbling over into a slick cast impression of herself. The target was only microns wide, and history’s great singers may simply have been those who […]

Given southern gospel’s tendency to exploit a concept long past its shelf life, it can be easy to forget how wonderful a thing was at one time. Via Adam Edwards, here’s a clip of Hamill horsewhipping the KingsGold boys through a gloriously garish rendition of “I’m Wingin’ My Way.”Listen to the way the tag restacks […]

A reader provides another view on royalties:
I work for an SG artist who is VERY committed to paying royalties. However, this business of royalty paying is more of an art than a science. I cannot tell you how complicated the process is. Not only is the publishing information near impossible to find on some songs, […]

That’s the way the good folks over at sogospelnews.com rendered the URL for this site in their version of the press release announcing the Diamond Awards finalists (Avery is up for favorite industry website this year). Because, you know, that way no one will find out what URL they’re talking about or be able to […]

Regarding the “Guy Is Burned Out” angle: The Gaithers do such a small amount of dates I am not sure how getting burned out would be the issue. It is all speculation of course, but Gaither has always subscribed to the “work smarter not harder” way of doing things and for years have had the […]

Some items that don’t really warrant a post of their own but are still worth pointing out:

Via musicscribe, The Nelons are doing some sort of reality show for SkyAngel television.

The SGMG’s annual Tuesday Night concert during GMA week appears to be ditching the format of last year’s odd pseudo-awards show  approach and going instead with […]

GMA week is coming up soon and it’s got me thinking a lot about sg within the larger contexts of Christian music, and so about the the macro movements in music entertainment (As an aside, I can’t say I have high hopes for this year’s SGMG GMA week southern gospel event. The past few years […]

Is it just me, or do these clips of Glenn Beck remind anyone else of a thousand hackilicious gospel performers who’ve tried to turn on the badly contrived affect and lacrimous chin-quivering in order to create a spayshul speerchul moment during a performance?