Regular readers will know that I don’t like the song one bit, but reading this kind of nonsense nearly roused me into a fit of defensive pique, just out of spite for the stupidity of these complaints. Then I went back and listened to the song again just now … and yeah … well, my gallant tendencies sort of hitched their giddy-up to ole John Wayne’s trusty steed and cantered off somewhere around the second chorus.

The problem with the song isn’t its theology (there’s hardly any there to speak of, really). It’s the writing. This is a classic example of a concept (”Jesus and John Wayne!”) in search of some lyrics to justify the hook. When I first saw the title when the album came out, I braced myself for a “Baptism of Jesse Taylor” redux, with labored lyrics about a picturesque mischief-maker-who looks mean but means well deep-down despite his gruff exterior  and conspicuous (but endearing!) irascibility. And though this probably would have made my eyes roll, it would at least have made a decent amount of sense within the lyrical conventions of country gospel.

Instead we get this boilerplate ma-and-pa lyric about how daddy sang bass, mama sang … oops … wrong song … daddy was a COWBOY, this time, hard as a rock, and mama was quiet as a prayer. Or a bible verse. Or a nap. Yawn.

I mean, I get it. The singer is somewhere between the spiritual austerity of his father (John Wayne)  and the sweet piety of his mother (Jesus). And of course the fact that Guy Penrod actually looks a little like Jesus and John Wayne is probably no small reason why the song ended up getting written, cut, and staged in the first place. Which is fine. Songs get written for particular singers all the time (“God’s Little People,” anyone?). Then again, most songs don’t rely on lyrical syllogisms that call to mind an image like the love child of the son of man and the Duke.

But the real hoot about all this is that the song’s downhome spiritual angst and hokey attempt to capitalize on Penrod’s country-Christ look was probably written with the very sorts of people in mind who are now howling the song off the air. Jesus and John, meet rock and hard place.

PS: I wonder if the song would have gotten this reaction if Penrod were still with the Vocal Band?

PPS: For once, it’s nice to see someone else’s comments section get swamped by the Sister Bertha Better Than You Brigade.  We need the break over here!

If you want to understand what is probably the main reason Bill Gaither made such revanchist splashy changes to the Gaither Vocal Band, sit through the first hour of the show on the Lovin’ Life tour. If you want to know why the strategy will probably work well enough, stay for the last 45 minutes before intermission for Signature Sound and whatever version of the sort-of newish GVB is on the bill that night.

Thursday it was Gaither, Michael English, Marshall Hall, and Wes Hampton (Phelps and Lowry will be appearing when the Homecoming tour doesn’t conflict with their touring schedule, or so said BG from the stage). The main impression this new, old GVB leaves on stage is that they’ve ceased being primarily about entertainment and become something more like gospel-music spectacle. This may just be a transitory quality that diminishes with time, but even so, watching and listening to English’s return to the group, I was struck by how much of the appeal involves the fantastic work of one’s gospel memory, the cognitive labor of squaring the man standing and singing in front of you with the guy we last saw – and couldn’t get enough of – with GVB in 1994. It’s a kind of meta-homecoming – one that English himself plays up by introducing his singing of “It is Finished” with a story about being homeless for a while back in the dark days of his grand decline … but you know what, Bill … now I’m home! Applause, applause, applause … Cue track.

Like I said, spectacle. But not an unaffecting one. GVB may no longer represent the leading edge of gospel music (and it’s this reality that most of us who complain about the changes are mourning, I suspect), but the artistic history and creative achievement they represent still commands an undeniable respect despite the diminishments of time and reversals of age and experience that the returning members bring with them.

For the GVB’s big finish, Hampton fed English the words to that masterful second verse of “It is Finished,” and the lyrics brought me up short, especially the lines that say,

These were battlefields of my own making
I didn’t know that the war had been won

I was honestly overtaken by an enraptured kind of awe, not so much by the quality of performance, but by the psychospiritual insight of the image – the way it tries to lyrically render the felt struggle of the enfleshed soul striving confusedly after some form of salvation – and the force of accumulated history brought to bear on that moment.  

The GVB was preceded by SSQ. Maybe they’re just wearing me down (“if you can’t beat ‘em” and all that), but I rather enjoyed most of their set. Sure, Ernie Haase pulled a Phil Cross and tried too hard to create a spayshuul speerchul moment in the set-up to the singing of “Lullaby” from Dream On (given that, as EH said, the song was designed for dads to sing to their children at bedtime, it may not be a bad thing that the song has a very high probability of putting someone to sleep, but this may also make it an inadvisable choice for live concerts).

But the majority of the set was mostly the good kind of flatfooted singing (and those SSQ boys certainly do love them their shoes). The choreography was smarter, more restrained and tasteful, less hammy and High School Musical than in the past. And the song selection – especially “Someday,” “Reason Enough,” “Swinging on the Golden Gate,” and “Since Jesus Passed By” – foregrounded the group’s signal strength: a sound rooted in sg’s close harmony, but updated tonally to reflect the vocal styles of pop, CCM, and Broadway. Too often when I’ve seen SSQ, this aspect of their work has been overshadowed by the jazz hands and hip swiveling and slightly-bawdier-than-church-camp camaraderie (yes, there was butt slapping at NQC). Coming prepared for more of the same, I was delighted to be wrong.

Ok, not totally wrong. Their set closed with “Then Came the Morning”  and this was the SSQ we all know and love, or love to hate: ginormous stacks, complicated lighting, and an ending designed to realign plate tectonics. But this felt more like an obligatory concession to the reality of contemporary Christian entertainment than a hoodwinking. That, or I was just in a forgiving mood. Of course in a perfect world I’d prefer a group as capable as SSQ find a way to get crowds on their feet with less stacking and more acoustical work (this is true of most artist; the best moments of the night were ones like Janet Paschal singing “It Won’t Rain Always,” which never gets old to me), but back on earth, SSQ showed a greater demonstrable effort to be singers than they’ve done in the past. Indeed, it rather showed signs of becoming the kind of instant classic work that once was the domain of the Gaither Vocal Band.

But on balance this particular version of the tour feels tired and worn out. There are entirely too many soloists – Joy Gardner, Ben Speer, Russ Taff, Ivan Parker, Janet Paschal, and Lynda Randle, and that’s not counting Gordon Mote. And the generally crummy song selection makes even the shortest one-song sets start to feel overlong, as though this portion of the show was brought to you by Lunesta.

After the Collingsworth Family, who came on early and did perhaps the solidest and most energetic set leading up to the headliner quartets, the pace of music ranged from mid-tempo to moribund (I can’t be sure, but I think the drummer was taking short naps in the vast distance between beats on the two turgid tunes Lynda Randle sang).

More substantively, the Homecoming tour seems to have gone stylistic flabby in its late middle age. Joy Gardner sang one of those pointless Praise-and-Worship anthems that sets different names of Jesus to music. Sample line: “all powerful omnipresent soon-coming king” (shortly after Gardner left the stage, the local non-denominational community church called and asked for its accompaniment track back). Russ Taff’s song was rather like listening to a radio stuck on SCAN, changing quickly from a black gospel station, to blues/soul, to smooth jazz and then R&B.

Which is to say, where once the tour was a reliably southern gospel affair augmented by some inspo and contemporary sounds, it’s now largely a higgledy-piggledy assortment of songs that make a lot of different noises but never really cohere. Take the Hoppers and “Jerusalem.” The song has never made any sense – lyrically (it’s the “His Name was John” of religious geography) or stylistically (given the song’s celebration of the city as the center of Christian theology, is the Arab leitmotif near the beginning meant to be ironic?) – but in this setting it feels less like the exotic lark or curious innovation that it typically comes across as, and more like a galloping horse with no rider.

And alas, there is very little comic relief in the humor, which is by turns hopelessly past its use-by date (especially the recurring Bill Gaither for President jokes), sophomoric (esp the abundance of jokes having to do with farm animals and scatology), or just overdone (Marsh Hall didn’t even really bother trying not to look bored with the skit in which Gaither plays the old gospel pedant and repeatedly interrupts the beginning of Hall’s cover of an old Jubilaire’s song).

It’s not that this stuff isn’t often funny, or at least humorous. It’s the bottom-of-the-barrel quality to it all (I mean, the sound guy funny-man and the joke-cracking guitarist get more time on the show than most of the soloists). Indeed, I left after intermission, during one of the first quartet standards, somewhere between the second lowing-cow sound effect and the start of the crowing-rooster gag.

So you know … by all means, bring back Mark Lowry, and Michael English, and David Phelps. Seriously. Bring back the show-stealing vocalist who may have lost a little more of his hair but hasn’t lost any of his talent or ability (or so I’ve heard tell). Bring back the fallen icon whose aging body and diminished voice palpably remind us that the pull of gospel music and its redemptive potential vary in inverse proportion to our fallibility and frailty. And please, God, bring back someone who can tell better jokes.

With the high tenor lead, they did some switching between Hampton and Phelps…and it was painfully clear that Bill would just point at the guy whom he wanted to sing…. And they sang. There was a mix-up at one point and Hampton came in almost a bar too late. The crowd laughed and Hampton did a good job playing it up and recovered well. It was also evident that English was not as familiar with this song as the others up to this point. He was guessing at words and notes. “Journey to the Sky” followed this and Wes Hampton did a great job on this one…he truly shined…. I found myself feeling sorry for Wes all night. I felt that the new members were in a way catered to a bit more and overshadowed him.

[snip]

When the group re-entered, they sang “Let Freedom Ring.” This was the last song of their set, and personally I would have went with something different. Michael had no clue on the words, and it affected their performance. David, however, carried his part and the song did well with the audience. They were stacked heavy enough throughout the night to cover up most of the errors…to the average listener anyways.

I did appreciate their heartfelt performances…I just wish they would have put a bit more time into memorization, polishing, etc……

The full report is here.

Besides, the appeal of this upcoming GVB reunion video isn’t about whether or not the singers can still cut it. The appeal is seeing them together again. I enjoyed Danny Funderburk on the Cathedral Reunion Tour a decade ago, even though he could no longer cut it. The excitement was still there, and yes, they SHOULD sing the same songs they popularized in their heyday. Why would we want them to sing some song we’d forgotten?

I wanted to hear Danny sing “Somebody Touched Me” as well as he was able while Glenn and George cheered him on at the Cathedrals reunion back then, and I want to hear Mark and Michael singing “Satisfied” now…warts and all.

This isn’t exactly a new point – that reunions are less about music and more about the satisfying memories evoked by watching and listening to certain recombinations of singers perform music from the past. And as several of you have noted, even at or near their worst (and think this clip probably qualifies as such), the Vocal Band – even past its prime – still surpasses a lot of the gospel music being made today.

But put together like this, these two points made me think about two related points. The first one is somewhat obvious: part of what makes it so painful to watch that clip is not how it compares to gospel music in general, but rather its merit compared to the Vocal Band’s own longstanding and justified reputation for innovative, difficult, impeccably sung arrangements that consistently found that sweet spot between the familiar and the fresh. Put this another way: for most gospel groups, having your live reunion performance dubbed  “not bad” is probably a complement, but the GVB is not most groups, so not bad is … well, not good, no matter how much nostalgia you slather over it.

The second point has to do with the concept of a reunion for a group whose main function over the past 15 years or so has been to maintain a stable core of musical excellence for what is probably the biggest and longest running reunion in Christian entertainment.

Sure, there was always a sentimental component to what the Vocal Band has done as part of the Homecoming phenomenon, and the opposite it true: there has been a lot of great music created by so many friends “coming home” to the Gaither tour. But the appeal of Homecoming has always primarily been sentimental and nostalgic. I think a lot of us want to believe that it succeeded because it emphasized musical excellence, however schmaltzy it may have been at times. And it is probably true that Homecoming wouldn’t have succeeded to the extent that it has beyond the gospel music world if the quality of the music on the tour hadn’t been reliably high. Still, I don’t think anyone could persuasively argue that musical excellence is a precondition for success among gospel audiences.

One way the Homecoming tour kept from sliding into abject sentimentality and maudlin nostalgia was to anchor the shows and videos with vocally astonishing performances by increasingly astonishing iterations of the Vocal Band. My own sense is that the Lowry-English-Franklin (or maybe the Lowry-English-Murray) Vocal Band was the most musically talented version of the group, and the Phelps-Penrod-Lowry/Hall version(s) the most accomplished group of entertainers.

But everybody has their own favorite. What stands out in this process of recalling one’s favorite lineups from the group’s history is that there hasn’t really been a bad iteration in the bunch (and this is true going back from the beginning, long before Homecoming came along). No instance where a new member faced a conspicuously steep learning curve. No case of someone failing outright in the job, even if in a few cases the choice was less inspired than most others. Instead the distinguishing feature of the Vocal Band has been that personnel changes seemed to be managed not on the basis of their nostalgic or sentimental value, as is naturally the case for the at-large roster of Homecoming friends, but on the basis of talent and ability.

Thus, to see this particular group, which kept the Homecoming reunions from falling into reunionizing excess, undertake their own reunion is a pretty clear signal that an era is maybe not over, but is headed toward some sort of end. And no matter how inevitable this may be, and no matter how well the GVB reunion will sell (oh how it will sell), it can still be hard to watch, sad to see, and sometimes difficult to listen to.

OK, I do realize that attempting to address the vitriolic Gaither-hating on this site is an exercise in futility, but you know… sometimes the wife of a “histrionic, emotionalistic, over-singing, Gaither-light waving, badly dressed, prematurely atrophied career” singer just needs to get a couple of things off her (smoking hot) chest.

(more…)

PS: If you haven’t already: go vote.

Lovin Life, the GVB’s latest album, might as well have been phoned in. More energy and thought appeared to have been put into the lighting, makeup, and hairstyles of the cover photo for the album than anything else. Indeed, the album art rather nicely captured the album itself: highly coiffed but largely vapid.

Rick Hendrix sent round an email this afternoon saying Penrod is fine and just wants to take a few weeks to rest, and maybe that’s true. But it’s hard to believe he doesn’t have one eye on the door, and hasn’t for some time. He was intimately involved in creating the music and image of the GVB at the height of its Homecoming fame, so he knows which way the wind is blowing for the group in these sunset years.

Meanwhile, it’s gratifying to see that my crystal ball is not entirely crusted over and that Jason Crabb will indeed be making some appearances on the Homecoming tour. Daniel Mount wonders what Crabb will sound like in a male-quartet, and I myself raised questions back when Crabb signed with Spring Hill about what kind of fit he’d be with the Homecoming set. But lately it occurs to me that, thanks to Russ Taff’s stint with the GVB, we’ve already seen what happens when you try to make a histrionic emotionalistic diva  divo do ensemble work. The more I think about it, the more I imagine that, like Taff, Crabb will generate some minor excitement among the faithful at first, and then just as quickly make people miss the other guy. And evidently Gaither might suspect this too, since Lowry and Phelps are sharing Penrod’s workload with Crabb.

Gimmicks and nostalgia … GVB’s starting to look more and more like just another gospel group.

“For believers, coming to Wal-Mart is like coming home.”

Gloria Gaither may also read a poem over the store’s loudspeakers about cheap affordable grace.

I haven’t read the book and honestly don’t plan to any time soon, so I don’t have anything meaningful to say about the novel itself. But I did find this image from the NYT story interesting. It’s a picture from a reading that the author did in suburban Indianapolis recently and isn’t that Gloria Gaither standing off to the right? The caption doesn’t say, but it sure looks like her.

It’s really not that big of a deal, but I’m always curious about these sorts of “as others see us” takes on insular cultures from the outside. Assuming that’s Gaither in the photo, here is arguably one of the most influential writers and artists in Christian entertainment involved in the rise of a bestselling/controversial Christian novel, and she doesn’t even rate a mention (and/or the reporter had no clue who Gloria Gaither is and so didn’t know that it might have been worth mentioning). I’m not surprised, mind you. Just bemused at being reminded in an unexpected place just how “sub” the sg subculture really is.

What I’d like to see, aside from all the Gaither/Homecoming product released today, would be an extensive compilation, like a boxed set, of all the earlier recordings, with outtakes, alternate versions, etc. and extensive liner notes. Bill would have to write them since MacKenzie and Bob Benson are gone but additional comments by Bill Grine (photographer), Bob McConnell (graphic designer), some of the engineers or players could be insightful. I doubt there would be a market for it, but as a collector who was influenced by BG’s music and a fan of that era of recording and publishing gospel music in general, it would help fill in some of the gaps and provide a comprehensive overview of the earliest years of one of the most significant groups in the genre.

I heartily second all this (read his whole comment; it’s worth it).

Judging by some of your comments, I’m more surprised than most of you that Gaither is no more actively involved in curating the history of his own career than he is. Perhaps a Gaither partisan would argue that this disinterest in certain parts of his own personal history reflects Gaither’s selfless concern with just being a blessing and letting the rest of the chips fall where they may. But I think that’s pretty clearly naïve, and wrong.

Both of his autobiographies are in some ways extensive attempts to carefully manage the relationship between history and his professional image (and like I said, it’s not like he’s averse to copiously annotated lists, as evidenced by the fairly exhaustive recitations of awards that cap off each book). The few times I’ve talked to him, he has spoken at length about Christian music history. Again, this may be Bill Gaither playing the part of Bill Gaither, but even so, that would only seem to deepen the puzzle. Wouldn’t a commitment to music history include carefully preserving your own if the early part of that work helped bring about a sea change in Christian music and entertainment?

My own sense is that Gaither is intellectually and imaginatively restless, that his eye is constantly darting hither and yon, trying to look for and alight upon whatever is just on the horizon, whatever the next thing is for him and his musical career. Partly this is good bidness, but reading his books, I get the sense this restlessness may also be a symptom of a deep-set anxiety Gaither has about losing his edge – or, perhaps more important, about being perceived to have lost his edge, gone soft creatively, or sold out ethically or spiritually.

Both books go on at some length about a “attack” in the early 70s on his integrity and authenticity from a close friend. The assault devastates Gaither, as he tells it, and sends him into a year-long depression and creative dry spell that he doesn’t reemerge from until the arrival of his third child, whose birth inspired “Because He Lives.” When I first read the books, the amount of attention and energy Gaither expends on this episode seemed strange to me: what his friend says is indeed mean, but I originally had a hard time imagining that what really amounts to an outburst of rudeness from a jealous friend could have surprised Gaither that much.

But on rereading the books this time, I got the feeling that Gaither is deeply concerned that his motives be perceived as pure and that his success be understood as a testament to his purity of heart. I don’t mean that Gaither is insecure. Just the opposite, in fact. If anything, he often comes across in the books as put-out that he has to explain how or why he and his wife made the business decisions they did. It’s as if to him, the patent proof of their business wisdom and ministerial acumen invalidates all need for explanation, that his story matters not for its explanatory value but because it provides a glimpse into the origins of their current success and contextualizes his reflective insights on life and Christian art.

In this light, history would seem to matter to Gaither only insofar as it affects the present. This would explain why he spends so much time constructing and reconstructing autobiographical narratives about the past, while evincing little interest in creating a coherent discographical record of his early years. Those old albums matter because they succeeded, individually and collectively. Why care about anything else?

There’s a bit of the historical fallacy in this kind of thinking. Moreover, it results in a pretty astounding gap in our understanding of American Protestant Christian music and cultural history. But aside from all that, as a practical matter, I find it difficult to believe a collector’s edition release of The Gaither Trio: the Early Years (from the earliest custom stuff to, say, 1975 or so) wouldn’t sell quite well, and not just among old timers like CVH.

The Homecoming phenomenon has (d)evolved to a point now where Gaither has nothing to risk by reminding people of his contemporary and inspo roots. In fact, many of his Homecoming fans would probably relish the chance to invest in the nostalgic prehistory of their favorite gospel music impresario. Everybody wins, especially BG: rereleasing the old stuff puts money in the bank, and reinforces his image as a trans-stylistic master of Christian music.

Aside from the fact that the writing in the first is far superior to the second, the books are interesting, when read side-by-side, for what they suggest about the way Gaither has quite consciously set about reinventing himself since 1992, when the first Homecoming video was shot. In Sunset (which comparatively makes very little mention of his southern gospel roots or interests), he pretty clearly sees himself winding down his career, and he seems to be using the book to make the Gaither brand synonymous with “elder statesmen of Christian music,” sensu lato. In More than Music, Gaither finds himself in the strange position of having had his career rejuvenated by southern gospel - after an adult lifetime of success as more or less a contemporary or inspirational artist - and needing to create a backstory of his life to accommodate the changed circumstances of newfound southern gospel success.

I’m not suggesting either book is a misrepresentation of reality as he experienced it. We all do this - modify and adjust and tweak the running autobiography of ourselves that’s constantly being (re)composed in our minds as our vision of ourselves shifts to meet the reality of lived experience. It’s just that few of us do so as publicly as someone like Gaither.

But I digress. In rereading these books, I found myself having trouble following the discographical history of the Gaither Trio. And so I started trying to plot out the trio’s early years project by project … and found it nearly impossible.

All the discographies I’ve found for the BG Trio are vexingly vague about the group’s recordings before the second Alleluia album (Alleluia: Praise Continues, from 1973, which is often mistaken for the first). The first Alleluia album was actually Alleluia: A Praise Gathering for Believers (circa 1971? Gaither’s books are persistently dodgy when it comes to specific dates, and there is, maddeningly, no complete or even partial discography of Gaither recordings in either book, perhaps because the long list of awards takes up the space that might have been used for a far less sexy but far more practical list of albums released under the Gaither name). But because Alleluia: Praise Gathering was technically a demo tape for the church musical of the same name, discographers appear to feel under no obligation to count it, for whatever reason, even though it sold well in its own right. Or is there a Master Discography In the Sky I’m missing?

Most disocgraphies (see for example, here, here and here) make vague but chronologically hedged references to Happiness (sans label, from “the 1960s,” which may or may not be a custom recording). But most begin to mark time for the group with At Home In Indiana, the 1970-71 project that put the trio on the map (ftr, Gaither refers to the project in both books, without fail, as “Back Home In Indiana”). But Gaither’s books mention at least three Benson projects in the early 1970s prior to Back/At Home that I haven’t seen listed in any of online discography: Sincerely, When God Seems So Near, and I Am Free. These projects were, if I understand the history correctly (and I may not; like I say, it’s all very muddled), after Bob Benson signed the trio and introduced them to producer Bob McKenzie, but before “Mac” and Gaither formed Paragon in the mid-70s.

But wait. It gets more interesting/complicated. Even though most discographies list At/Back Home in Indiana (circa “1970s” is as specific as they get), most don’t begin to specify exact years of release for albums until the 1972 Live recording (2 LPs). The consistency of the vagueness suggests something more substantive than neglect or lack of interest. Maybe the master file is just irrecoverably vague or obtuse. At any rate, I assume there’s a fairly reasonable explanation why several different discographies manifest similar kinds of inexactitudes surrounding the pre-1972 Live album.

But still … surely there are people out there (besides BG himself, who doesn’t seem terribly interested in discographical specificity in his books) who own the complete works of BG Trio before 1972 and who could pretty easily clear up what exactly is the chronological order of their releases and whether or not those releases were custom or label. Right? Surely?

First, I’m not sure why anyone would sign with a label that has a website as badly out of date of Spring Hill’s (the latest “newsflash”? Crossway ends the year with a bang … in 2004! And then there’s the roster of artists, many of which haven’t been with Spring Hill for a long time). Ok, maybe it shouldn’t keep people from signing with a label, but honestly. Do bonafide businesses still think the internet can be treated like an afterthought?

Anyway, I gotta say the deal was a little surprising. First I really had hoped that Crabb would sign with Canaan for reasons I’ve alluded to elsewhere. But my own sugarplum visions aside, Spring Hill is a hard outfit to figure out. As far as I know, it’s still owned by Gaither, Mark Lowry, and a couple of others (though correct me if I’m wrong here). But it hasn’t exactly shown signs of great life lately. In fact, I had always thought that when Gaither’s son-in-law Barry Jennings took things over a while back, it was to basically clean the place up (a work in progress I guess, since obviously no one has gotten around to that “update website” item on the to-do list) and then move back to the Gaither mothership.

But maybe Gaither has other plans. Why, I can’t imagine. He has the Gaither Music label to play with. Then again, Jennings is a super smart guy by all accounts and he’s obviously not just parachuting in for a quick clean up, so maybe there’s something else going on here.

All that said, there are plenty of reasons the deal makes sense, especially if you’re Jason Crabb. With Spring Hill he gets connections to the Gaither Music distribution network. And we should probably start looking for him on the fall Homecoming tour as well.

For Gaither and Co., Crabb brings with him an abiding popularity among a country/holiness demographic that Gaither could want to make inroads into. How Crabb’s Pentecostalism would play on the Homecoming stage is an open question, as I imagine it won’t be easy to control or contain the guy when he gets on a holy roll. But then again, Lynda Randall, a long time Homecoming Friend who came from a pretty heavy holiness background, exemplifies how an artist’s performance style can be Gaitherized into the mass-market Homecoming aesthetic. So who knows.

-This time of year is when I get really behind on a lot of things that aren’t absolutely necessary. Which means, among things, I have a growing stack of music I need/want to listen to, including but not limited to the Childress Family, EHSSQ/GVB Together (video and audio discs), GV Everyday People (and their hymns project which I haven’t heard in its entirety yet), Booths Harmony, and Ronnie Booth’s solo cd. I also want/need to listen more closely to the Talleys Stages, Perrys Look no Further and Gold City Revival. Any suggestions on what should move to the top of the stack and, for that matter, what else I should add?

-Speaking of the GVB album … There seems to be a bit of a spat over what, precisely, is the latest Gaither Vocal Band radio single. The following was in Thursday’s SG Show Prep:

In an email labeled: “Urgent Radio Information” record promoter Rick Hendrix says a Gaither Vocal Band single sent to DJs should not be added to stations’ play lists. Rick told SGSP: “A single has surfaced at radio by Gaither Vocal Band.. ‘My Journey to the Sky’ It was our mistake. Please do not add this song. It is not from the new project and is not going to be promoted.”

Hendrix goes on to say that the current GVB single is “Love is Like A River” from the “Together” CD with Ernie Haase and Signature Sound. Rick adds: “I apologize for the error.”

And then, this afternoon, this message made the rounds to radio types, from Jeff O’Neal of Heritage Communications:

The new single you received from me [“My Journey to the Sky”] WAS approved by BILL GAITHER to go out. He told me he wanted that song to go out before the new project was done. So just in case you’re getting some other kind story from another promoter.

Presumably this all has something to do with a disagreement about exclusive promotional rights, but still, it seems like the left hand fighting with the right hand to me. Hard to tell, especially with no more understanding of radio promotion than I have. Anyway, it’s still amusing enough to be a decent distraction on a Friday.

-I’ve heard the Ball Brothers, a young and B-side family quartet with a funny name, may have caught the attention of Canaan Records. I’ll be interested to see if a deal actually happens (for that matter, I’ll be interested to see if Canaan is going to announce ANY deals besides their Hoppers arrangement from what seems like long ago). The Balls certainly have the look (think a slightly wholesomer EHSSQ), but if their last project was/is any indication, Canaan may want to hold off for a bit, unless they’re ready to invest heavily in these guys (which they may be … that is, after all, how labels are supposed to operate even if it’s mostly unheard of in southern gospel these days). You can hear a few songs from them on their website home page. “Mercy Said No” is a good example of their strengths (tight harmony, assuming they can pull it off live) and weaknesses (pitch control and breath support issues that create nasality and some thinning out of the sound).

Anyway, it would take some investment to get the Ball Brothers to sound as good as they look. The difference between the two right now doesn’t really matter on a night-to-night basis and won’t for quite some time, since gospel crowds eat up young artists. But in the long run, there’s enough vocal instability there to give a label pause (plus, I guess you’d need to weigh whether the EHSSQ phenomenon is a genuine style that can be piggybacked on with a SSQ lookalike/soundalike group or whether it’s just a fad … which would be a tough call to make). That said, Canaan/Word would be in a position to invest what’s needed. So yeah … we’ll see, I guess.

Update: Just one last item. From longtime reader JG, a youtube clip of what looks like a version of Mercy’s Mark (with Chris West and West’s brother) covering “Midnight Cry.” Whatever else one has to say about it, Josh Feemster pretty much takes over complete ownership of this song, as far as I’m concerned. Ivan Parker might have nostalgia in his favor, but he’s never sang it anywhere near this well. Plus, I think we can officially say that southern gospel has now discovered youtube.

Maybe a better question would be who is going to take Gloria’s place? From all I have heard from people who were often on the Homecoming series, she was the one with the plan.

An excellent point. For all my carping on and on about how overlooked and undervalued women’s contributions are in southern gospel culture, my own tendency to focus on mainly on BG at the expense of GG unfortunately illustrates how reflexively masculinist sg is. Color me chagrined.

Following up on Harris’s point, reader cdguy had this to say:

Ben, I don’t know about her having the plan, but I do know she has a heavy hand in selecting the songs. She has for many years, not just on the homecoming projects, or GVB, but even dating back to the trio days. Not saying it’s a bad thing, just saying that’s the way it is. In fact, I happen to think she’s done a good job. Except that they have been rehashing a lot of the same songs, in recent years. They could at least do new tracks and new arrangement, now and then.

In that regard, I think Suzanne and Amy could step in to help Bill. Suzanne seems to be similar to Gloria in writing style. Maybe she also inherited the gene that would help in the programming.

Don’t know if you’d noticed, but the earliest homecoming videos were not as structured, just sitting around the piano calling out song titles. Once they started programming them, I think the content got better. Probably Gloria’s influence, rather than Bill just playing with his friends.

I have no idea how much of the Gaither formula is Bill’s doing or Gloria’s. As with most of these sorts of things, it’s probably a healthy mix of both Bill and Gloria in the shows. And while it’s a mistake to think that Bill’s aw-shucks “just me and my friends up here sangin’” schtick on stage means he’s not shrewdly invested in constructing a wholistic concert experience, cdguy is probably onto something in suggesting that Gloria’s influence plays a big part in the way song selection creates the emotional trajectories of the Homecoming shows.

I’ve heard enough of Suzanne, the Gaither’s daughter, on some of the videos to say confidently she got plenty of her mother’s propensity for sentimental recitations and overlong reflections on the wondrousness of God’s glorious grace. I’m no more a fan  of this from the daughter than I have been from the mother, but Suzanne could (and maybe already does), as cdguy notes, probably fulfill some of the same content roles as her mother quite well.

What sort of surprises me is that no one has been consistently groomed to take over the impresario role from Gaither. Rory and Lowry and Gordon … we know these names and faces well from their part in the Homecoming comic relief. But as the premise of our earlier thread made clear, there’s no obvious successor to BG’s on-stage role. I do recall seeing Benji Gaither get some face time on the Give it Away video for his songwriting on that African-flavored song, but he (and Suzanne, for that matter) will need a lot more carefully crafted exposure if any of this is supposed stay in the family beyond the reign of pater and mater familias.