averyfineline

What better way to start the week off right than with a free-for-all open thread? I’ll throw the first few punches.

Via Daniel Mount, Jason Crabb just won a Grammy for his solo album. I reviewed it here if you want to refresh your memory or catch up on things.

The Mike LeFevre quartet  is no longer […]

Brian Eno on the allure of gospel singing:
I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant. Ultimately, the message of gospel music is that everything’s going to be all right. If you listen to millions of gospel records – and I have – and try to distil […]

Over at musicscribe, David Bruce Murray is conducting a (to me) fascinating little poll that asks readers to rate the “relative appeal” of artists on the NQC mainstage in 2010. He’s got preliminary results up but is still taking responses. Go drop him a line.
Perhaps it’s just because I’ve been working a lot today with […]

Setting aside for the moment the old “gospel always means black” fallacy at work here, this article reminds me of all the stories I’ve heard from sg insider types about the troves and troves of recordings abandoned and forgotten and dry rotting all over Nashville and other points south (h/t, GT). It also demonstrates that […]

I received a mass email today from a southern gospel artist with the following subject line: When Your Mess Becomes Your Message. Feel free to write as many verses in comments as the lord lays on your heart.

In my gospel music course this week, we spent a good deal of time covering the question of whether one has to share the values and vision of a performer in order for the performance to create genuine experiences - religious, spiritual, emotional - for an audience or an individual. Longtime readers of this site […]

Via Adam Edwards a while back (via Dean Adkins’ treasure trove of YouTube clips) , an old clip of the Mullins Brothers, with a young Paul Lancaster and Buddy Mullins pre-Gaither make-over:

Forget angel bands. I’ll take this sound any day.

So in the past few days I’ve had to delete several off topic comments and redirect the commenters to the most recent open thread (prior to this post, that would have been the Weekend Roundup). Evidently it’s not enough to have an open thread; it’s got to be at the the top of the page! […]

David Bruce  Murray notices another instance of honesty being committed in announcements about personnel changes - this time, the Chucks asked their alto to resign so a family member could come back to the group - and adds an insightful reflection about how to walk the fine line between diplomatic honesty and indelicate bluntness. After […]

A lot of folks are scratching their heads over Guy Penrod’s recent signing with Gaither Music. But the move strikes me as just about right. The Gaither Mothership has always had a very paternalistic relationship with its artists … willing to cut them off when they (were deemed to have) misbehaved, and just as willing […]