averyfineline

I have no idea if this is legit or not, but a commenter using the name of the Oak Ridge Boys’ Joe Bonsall posts the following, too-good-not-to-post story:
During a similar time an old woman came to the front of the stage after we finished and pounded on the floor demanding the OAKS come back […]

Several readers have alerted me to this story out of Charlotte about the Hoppers doing a benefit for an HIV/AIDS clinic’s foodbank:
Pierce says he didn’t know want to expect when he first reached out to The Hoppers. Nationally recognized, award-winning and Southern Gospel community favorites, The Hoppers have also worked closely with gospel […]

I just got an email from Allison Durham Speer’s office alerting me to the exciting opportunity to buy some of Allison’s jewelry just in time for Christmas. Oh my.  Because what southern gospel really needs is more tacky glass art jewelry (h/t, KC).

From reader Rev. Al, a great little story:
I saw the Oak Ridge Boys several years ago in concert. It was right after they transitioned to country. They were rockin it out - but there were several old ladies who came expecting Smitty Gatlin. After about 5 songs - a little old lady […]

As part of his 10+ years of managing to write about Pretty Much Everything, Andrew Sullivan posted the snippet below and titled the post “Kid Rock: the Monkees of Today”:
Although he has been culturally irrelevant for the last half-decade, his songs are always playing whenever you turn on the radio. Slowly, he has turned […]

Happy Thanksgiving. Here are a few items that didn’t rise to the level of their own post but might help seed some holiday discussion:

Via reader DJ, a Christmas album recommendation: pianist Chris Dawson’s Stridin’ Through Christmas, a stride-style take on some xmas standards. iTunes has the teaser clips, of course, and here’s a fuller length […]

I refer, of course, to the Isaacs’ Christmas song that seems to have some folks all twitterpated, and given all the raving about it, I was ready to be gobsmacked. But I’ve now listened to it a coupla of times and I’m mostly sorta … meh … about it.
I wrote this and a version of […]

A reader eloquently amplifies some of the thoughts I kicked around this morning about the techno-sanitization of the live album:
Live albums, once my favorites, don’t even interest me any more because they are so far from being live. The tracks are usually pre-recorded in a studio and the vocals are almost all […]

Not sure how I missed this, but Marion Snider, the original pianist for the Stamps Quartet, died last week (h/t, RW). He was 96. Thus a Dallas blog:
An era in Southern gospel music was celebrated today, when services for piano legend/songwriter Marion Snider were held at Dallas’ Northway Christian Church. Called “the greatest pianist to […]

Apropos Alex Ross’s definition of great music that we’ve been discussing over here (DBM and his readers take up the issue here as well), I tend to take a Potter Stewart approach to these sorts of questions: I know it when I see/hear/encounter it.
I spent much of a recent afternoon listening to a new southern […]