I first noticed the absence of the Cathedrals name on the L5 website. Basically the same brochure that is in the February issue of the Singing News (p44-45) is posted online, except that the word “Cathedral” – as in “Cathedral Tribute” – has been dropped so that it now reads simply “Tribute Concert” (a pdf of the current brochure is here). But then again the word “Cathedrals” is used in a the running text a few lines later. So thinking I was maybe just making something out of nothing, I did a little research (ok, all I did was compare two L5 eletters but still … this is a blog, so “research” is a loose term)

Turns out, though, this is not just some coincidence. The January 31 eletter contains an ad for the “Cathedrals Remembered” concert. The February 7 eletter? “Reminder on Currington Promotions concerts,” the headline reads. “Just want to remind you about the special tribute events featuring Legacy Five, Greater Vision, the Mark Trammell Trio and Danny Funderburk.” The word “Cathedrals”? No where in sight.

It is Friday night and I am sitting at home catching up on a week’s worth of miscellaneous reading and browsing, but still … if I were a more a cynical guy, I might wonder if somebody’s legal muscle isn’t leaning on Currington and the groups affiliated with these “tribute concerts” to cease and desist using the Cats name. Assuming the Cathedrals estates haven’t authorized the use of the name (and I don’t know one way or another), are there any copyright or intellectual property lawyers out there who can weigh in on the likelihood that using the Cats name in these “tribute” concerts is actionable?

These are the kinds of songs that become essentially trademark acts for stars of a certain stature, but what made the bass singer for the Cathedrals a legend - what made him Just George to gospel music - was his way of being at once fully in command of the stage, the room, the show and yet fully a part of the Cathedrals. Younce was not a soloist, nor was he a one-man show, which makes a Tribute to George Younce alone problematic from the start. What he was, was a showman, in every deep and reverential sense of the word. As the term itself - showman - suggests, the man cannot be separated from the show, and the show in which Younce glowed so brightly was an ensemble act. Which is why I find the most effective and representative moments on the project to be songs that at best co-feature or momentarily spotlight Younce: “Sinner Saved By Grace” (Younce and Glen Payne share the verses); “Up Above my Head” (Younce and Jake Hess share verses; this is perhaps the most enjoyable tune on the project,); “Child of the King” (Younce and, it sounds like, Brock Speer share verses).

These songs come closer to capturing the ineffable way he created moments of transcendence and grace on stage with other performers - that is, the way he was Just George - often without singing at all. Sometimes it was just a little laugh, a soft word spoken where a note might more typically be sung (I describe one such moment here). At other times it was nothing more or less than standing off to the side of the stage and smiling and pointing and tapping his foot (you can see this on the Can He, Could He, Would He video during “Land of the Living”). Or calling out “oh boys that’s the way to sing that song right there … do that little trio part again … I LOVE that little trio part …” And away we went.

Ok, so maybe as Tribute projects go, this one isn’t any less successful than a different collection of George Younce songs might have been. What, after all, does a life sound like? What we have here is no more or less than we’re left with when someone is dead - memories - and memories differ from person to person. Gaither’s are, in the end, as accurate and as partially successful as anyone else’s would be. Perhaps all we can hope for - ever - from Tribute projects are these kinds of feeble approximations from a recording archive that at best send back to us faint sounds of a life that always seemed to exceed and outshine the meager scale of even the largest stage and the biggest crowds.

The George Younce Tribute project that Gaither released earlier this year rotated around in the mix of things on my iPod the other day (I had forgotten to listen to it after I initially digitized the album), and about half way through, I found myself wondering, “Why is this so unsatisfying?” Partly the answer lies in the question, why is GAITHER’S tribute to Younce so unsatisfying? This is a fully Gaitherized compilation, which means we don’t get anything that didn’t get recorded on the stage of a Gaither event, which in turn means the earliest of anything we get here is the early 90s. It’s not that Younce wasn’t at the top of his game in his final years (even when his health and voice were in decline his presence alone realigned the center of gravity when he took the stage). But the emotional climatron of Gaither’s events - the way everyone competes to be even MORE thrilled than the person next to him about how much more outrageously fantastic and gloriously glorious each performer is than the next, the thou-protesteth-too-much guffawing at things that are only mildly funny, how Gloria’s poems ALWAYS make somebody cry, Jessy Dixon’s makeup - all of this manages to (inadvertently) give two false impressions simultaneously: that Younce was just another loveable Old Friend and that anything he sang was fantastic. Never mind that’s not true. Because the material collected here is live, it receives the Gaitherized responses of Gaither’s live audiences (both performers and regular fans alike) who tend to respond with undifferentiated enthusiasm to just about everything officially sanctioned by Gaither Himself.

First, Younce of course was so much more than an Old Friend. I suppose if the choice was between releasing a project full of Gaither-owned Younce and Cathedrals recordings and releasing nothing at all, this is better than nothing. But Younce’s best moments - and the thing that made him such a superstar - was not his solo ability. And this brings us to the second point: Not everything Younce sang was all that great, especially not his solo numbers. These solo songs often had a novelty or carnivalesque feel to them: here, that would be represented by the insufferable “Laughing Song,” the talk-singing of “Led out of Bondage,” the syrupy “God Loves to Talk to Little Boys” or even “This Ole House,” which (though popular) has always struck me as formulaic and an unremarkable giddy-up set piece (what IS enjoyable to hear on the “This Ole House” recording is the response of the crowd to this song, which was recorded at Gaither’s Farewell concert for the Cats and so feels a little more authentic than a typical Gaither Homecoming).

These are the kinds of songs that become essentially trademark acts for stars of a certain stature, but what made the bass singer for the Cathedrals a legend - what made him Just George to gospel music - was his way of being at once fully in command of the stage, the room, the show and yet fully a part of the Cathedrals. Younce was not a soloist, nor was he a one-man show, which makes a Tribute to George Younce alone problematic from the start. What he was, was a showman, in every deep and reverential sense of the word. As the term itself - showman - suggests, the man cannot be separated from the show, and the show in which Younce glowed so brightly was an ensemble act. Which is why I find the most effective and representative moments on the project to be songs that at best co-feature or momentarily spotlight Younce: “Sinner Saved By Grace” (Younce and Glen Payne share the verses); “Up Above my Head” (Younce and Jake Hess share verses; this is perhaps the most enjoyable tune on the project,); “Child of the King” (Younce and, it sounds like, Brock Speer share verses).

These songs come closer to capturing the ineffable way he created moments of transcendence and grace on stage with other performers - that is, the way he was Just George - often without singing at all. Sometimes it was just a little laugh, a soft word spoken where a note might more typically be sung (I describe one such moment here). At other times it was nothing more or less than standing off to the side of the stage and smiling and pointing and tapping his foot (you can see this on the Can He, Could He, Would He video during “Land of the Living”). Or calling out “oh boys that’s the way to sing that song right there … do that little trio part again … I LOVE that little trio part …” And away we went.

Ok, so maybe as Tribute projects go, this one isn’t any less successful than a different collection of George Younce songs might have been. What, after all, does a life sound like? What we have here is no more or less than we’re left with when someone is dead - memories - and memories differ from person to person. Gaither’s are, in the end, as accurate and as partially successful as anyone else’s would be. Perhaps all we can hope for - ever - from Tribue projects are these kinds of feeble approximations from a recording archive that at best send back to us faint sounds of a life that always seemed to exceed and outshine the meager scale of even the largest stage and the biggest crowds.

Jesus said it; I believe it:
Life will be sweeter some day.
I’m gonna trust him, never doubt him,
No matter what the folks may say.
CAN’T TURN AWAY FROM HIM LIGHTLY.
[Trammel’s line:] Because the joys of heaven I’ll miss.
[Ensemble again] And I will live on, up in glory, after while, after while.

I first “reheard” this song on my way back from Chicago in the summer of 1999 about 3:30 in the morning somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin. I do this every so often, rediscover a tune buried on a CD somewhere that I’ve forgotten about and then, having “found” it again, will play it until I sing it in my sleep, wake up with it on my lips and in my ears, reflexively hear its arrangement, solos and modulations and harmonies in my head without intending to, get perfectly sick of it even though I can’t seem to hear it enough. Anyway, this tune opens with four bars of Gary Lunn bass and Lari Goss keyboards in a lilting, soothing simplicity that the tune sustains, like a meditation, throughout. I thought then in the middle of all those dairy farms, as I do still now, that that style and form are quintessential Cats: four voices, a bass and a keyboard. I cried in the car, listening to it over and over, laughing out loud at the stunning brilliance of the keyboard-and-bass bridge of 16 plain, classic bars … no notes more complicated than basic quarters and eighths, just tastefully played with the expert sense of rhythm and beauty that transforms the tune from the mundane world of a dashed-off anniversary sale-bin special to something nearly supernatural, yet so palpably real.

“Oh What a Savior,” revisited (II of III)
One morning not too long after rediscovering “Life Will be Sweeter,” I put in the “Cathedrals Alive: Deep in the Heart of Texas” and turned it up (I lived in the far northern reaches of Minnesota at the time and my very unsouthern neighbors must surely have wondered). By the time I am out of the shower and dressed, “Oh What a Savior” is playing and Ernie Haase is standing ‘em up with that second verse and then the rest of the guys join in … “Oh what a savior, oh Hallelujah / His heart was broken” … Roger Bennett plays that little riff to bridge the phrases, and in the quiet of the moment just before the vocals return, some guy in the back rows (standing, I imagine to myself, as I walk into the living room and reach for the remote to increase the volume yet again), shouts “Praise the Lord.” George hears the guy and chuckles in that way he had, as if to say, “Oh, my goodness we’ve been so blessed,” and (here’s the best part) instead of singing the next line with Glen and Fowler and Haase, George, ever so kindly, lightly really, almost to himself, it seems, says, “Thank you Lord.” And that’s it. I can’t take it. I hop around my little living room, laughing and crying and just can’t stand it. The song tumbles toward that final climax, first gently, then more intensely, then fantastically, powerfully … the voices rising, reaching … Fowler’s bass falling, thumping steadily, syncopated against George’s attacks on the descending bass notes … until finally the resolution sets in and the crowd screams, babies fly, arms wave, hands clapping. … And George instinctively takes control of the moment: he laughs with such genuine rapture at what’s just happenned, “Yeah! … Ernie Haase … ” more rapturous laughter, “that’s thuh waytta sing that song right there, boys, Oh, whatta savior! Glooory!…” and so on and so forth. That’s the first time I had heard truly what was going on in that song. I had heard, of course, George chuckle between phrases in the chours every other time I had listened to the track. But that morning, with my freshly showered self and my scrubbed ears keenly peeled, that was the first time I’d ever heard the guy in the back rows of the audience … listen to it yourself: turn it up and put some head phones on (squeeze them really tight to your ears); you’ll hear him too, I bet. He couldn’t stand it any more either, just had to shout, and George magically makes that guy’s declaratory outburst a part of the song, a part of the moment, the phrase, the praise. It is not, in George’s deft, capable, brilliant stage hands, an interruption, but an augmentation to this tune they’ve staged countless times before. With that simple rhetorical trick, that split-second awareness, George gave those folks in that big Baptist church not the umpteen-thousandth rendition of “Oh What a Savior,” but a tune just for them, a creation of that night only, one that they won’t ever forget hearing.

The case for the Cathedrals’ greatness (III of III)
I remember Ernie Haase at the quartet convention’s Catherdals reunion a few years back, describing what George said to him once when he, Haase, complained about having to sing “Oh What A Savior” night after night: “George told me,” Haase said, “’some singers go their whole career without having even one song to call their own. ‘You should be thankful,’ he said to me, ‘that you have that tune.’” Remarkable. Unbelievable brilliance, not just from George Younce (a genius to be sure), but in a way, a summation of the ethos behind the group’s success. The Cats went out night after night for most of the last three decades of the twentieth century with nothing but a keyboard, a bass and four voices. No stack tracks (at least not many), no DAT bands, no dubbed choirs (at least only a few now and then). Just them. And they sang, most of time (except those few years there toward the end of the Funderburk era that weren’t so swell, Funderburk being at the time so out of shape vocally and all) with a degree of expertise and mastery that astounds me even now. Some groups lurch about for years, decades constantly reinventing themselves (”We sing the classic quartet music of the 50s and 60s;” “We’re the ones with clever, reliable stunts;” “Look, over here … we’ve got a flag corps and a petition you can sign”). Which is to say, some groups, to adapt George’s line, are lucky ever to find one stable style of their own. But with discipline and diligence, the Cats patiently tilled the fertile ground that George and Glenn staked out for the group from the beginning. The pricey clothes and the classy stage presence, the snazzy bus, the posh island at the convention exhibit hall, the glossy PR - these things didn’t pave the way for their success but proceeded from them and the elegance embodied in that wonderful name, Cathedral. Their first worry was not so much their look, or their signature stunt, or a trick to set them apart, but the sound, THEIR sound. Not the sound of their voices with DAT tracks and voiceovers and dubbing, but their voices, alone, and whether or not they could stand, vocally and instrumentally, on their own if the power went out. They could, of course, and the plan worked … famously well. The class and the elegance came later, maybe naturally, from the graceful, skilled way they did their music. The first-rate emcee work, the tasteful, right-on comedy, the balance of two old codgers and three young guys - all that came later. What propelled the Cathedrals’ success and enabled their unforgettable music, and what sustained their unrivaled dominance of southern gospel music was that delicate cocktail of style, real style: a sound that is easy to recognize, difficult to describe, and impossible to imitate.