In general, I think sg insiders have wondered for some time what exactly was the true and lasting origins of L5’s success. Fair or not, the group’s emergence from the Cathedrals inarguably gave the new group a prominence of place and priority in the pecking order of southern gospel that had little to do with ability, talent, or performance.

That doesn’t mean they have nothing going for them musically. They have had and do. But on balance, the group’s success has consistently benefited more from the nostalgia for Glen Payne and George Younce that the Scott Fowler/Roger Bennett pairing kept alive (nothing wrong with that; we all play the cards we’re dealt), and not least of all from the showmanship of Roger Bennett, than it has from the sheer genius of their music. Probably since “I Stand Redeemed” – a real piece of musical magic – there’s really been no song that L5 has managed to popularize in a way equal to, say, a song like “He Saw it All” or “Get Away Jordan” or “I Will Find You Again” or “insert any recent Greater Vision hit.”

When people talk to me about this – always in that “are you sure we should even be talking about this?” kinda voice, given the way Roger Bennett’s death still hangs over every discussion of the group – the conversation drifts inexorably toward some version of the following: Roger was the marquee star that held the group together and made up for what the music and/or song selection often lacked. Without him? … ehhhhh, I don’t know …

I think what people are getting at is less about the long-term viability of the group (they’ll be around for as long as they want to be, I imagine) and more about the unmistakable reality that in losing Bennett, the group lost not just a wonderful person but a flagship personality. The question isn’t, will the group survive? Rather, it’s something like, will they survive and even thrive, but unremarkably so?

Roger’s illness and death, and the way the group became a collective symbol and voice for his struggle as they sang the music he created from that crisis, doubtlessly stretched the group musically, toward the meditative and reflective to an extent they probably wouldn’t have otherwise gone. But without diminishing the legitimacy of that music, it was a product of its moment and context and, as we all too sadly feared, never a sustainable track from a creative standpoint. Given the degree to which Bennett’s personality became ever more the defining element of the group in recent years, it’s probably only natural that insiders and other sg types would develop a sense of uncertainty about what the future holds for L5.

Are they “toast”? Hardly. Gospel music fans are loyal and nostalgic, and for average L5 devotee, I imagine Bennett’s death only deepened their sense of loyalty (and this is the one reason why people are so reluctant to talk about this issue at all, because so many joyful noisers in the rank file tend to treat even an acknowledge of the obvious as a form of disrespect to the living and dead, even though it isn’t and ought not be considered so). What’s more, long before Bennett’s death L5 was quietly working to build one of the more impressive bases of regular fans who support the group no matter what kind of music they produce.

But their recent projects haven’t exactly gone beyond the competent or predictable (with perhaps the exception of “Truth is Marching On,” but which doesn’t really count, since Gold City managed to brand it as “theirs” first). L5’s 2007 Christmas project sounded expensive, but it was a strange place to put a lot money given its short shelf life and the fact that Christmas music is creatively pretty much a dead-end.

Perhaps the group needs and deserves time to reinvent itself or mourn through the loss of a friend and colleague, to say nothing of figuring out how to fill the creative void created by this death. But I actually think they are where they want to be – pretty much content with the place they occupy, a place they can probably safely inhabit as long as they like, getting by doing nothing more or less than what they’ve been doing.

For some outsiders looking in, it’s a bit different. Whatever else the subsistence model of artistic or professional vision may be, it is not, I don’t think, what some people have in mind when they think and speak of L5 as an heir to the legacy of Cathedrals and the caliber of music such a name calls to mind.

SN: Will the group be seeking another pianist?

SF: Yes.

The question is, of course, who? Seems to me the logical thing, if you’re Fowler (who I assume is now the sole owner of the group), is to do everything in your power to convince Tim Parton, who has been filling in on and off for a while now with L5 when Bennett was too sick to travel, to stay on at least for the next 3-6 months. Indeed, Parton strikes me as a fine permanent L5 pianist, should he be open to the idea. When I’ve seen Parton with the group, he’s been a nice fit. A talented player who, thanks to years of experience in the studio, has the understated self-confidence of someone with nothing to prove and so would be less likely to get caught in the “comparisons to Roger” trap – a sure loser every time for anyone.

It’s SOP to say that someone can’t be replaced, and usually that’s the case because it’s true. In this case, though, such stock phrasing fails to capture the enormity of Bennett’s loss to the group as a performer and emcee, to say nothing of personal relationships he left behind. I was never convinced he was cut out for vocal work, but he was a force of musical omniscience in the group, commanding nearly all aspects of the L5 sound and appearance: arrangements, keyboards, no little amount of songwriting, vocalist, and of course, the emcee full of genuinely funny comic relief.

I’m not suggesting L5 can’t go on without Bennett. The truth is, of course, they’ve been learning to work without him on and off for some time now. But no matter, Bennett’s was and is the kind of influence that will define the group’s identity and appeal for some time to come. For the next year or two, I imagine (if not longer), fans will expect L5 to keep Bennett’s memory alive from the stage in a variety of ways, similar in spirit if not precisely in kind to what the group has had to learn to do in the past years when Bennett had to take a leave from the road. This makes Parton all the more logical for the short and, if possible, immediate longer-term, as he has been a part of the group during these last few difficult years already. Stability is key in these kinds of interregnums, when the foreseeable future will be as much about reconciling with the past as transitioning to what’s next. Such a transition will have to come, inevitably, at some point, and potentially bring with it changes in one direction or another that might right now seem imponderable (indeed, I won’t be surprised if someone blasts me for being disloyal to Bennett and his memory for writing as much as I have). But if you’re L5 (or their fans), there’s no reason to rush.

Update: Just to close the loop on this, and to give me the satisfaction of reading the tea leaves mostly right, I’ll note what most of you probably already know by now: Parton is the permanent L5 pianist.

Legacy Five, a Southern gospel band, will play at 7:30 pm tomorrow at Northgate Church, 238 West View Ave. Tickets are $12 …

This was right after Roger Bennett had been first diagnosed with cancer and had come off the road to receive treatment, and I was devastated when I got to the church and realized my poster would lack his signature. It would take years, and my own experience with cancer, before I would come to realize how selfish and insensitive my disappointment was. But at the time, I confess to being fairly self-absorbed. I had all the instructional videos he had put out at that point and was deeply envious of that early solo album of his with him standing with a keyboard on the cover. I think I may have – yes, I’m pretty sure – practiced my own imitation of that pose with my Casio 3000.

At the time, of course, the conventional wisdom of fear was that Bennett wouldn’t survive what was clearly a scary situation. With time and the great grace of providence, he has survived … and survived and survived. In the car on the way home from dinner tonight I was listening to Live in Music City (still) and the “But God” cut came round on the player. I confess to rarely not listening to music analytically and critically. This is, for the most part, how I encounter the world and why and how I specifically enjoy gospel music – understanding and inhabiting its intricacies, listening to the sometimes lyrical, sometimes flatfooted interaction of lyrics and music and performance and style – the sum of its parts and all that. But tonight my mind wandered and I thought of Bennett and that by-now seemingly faraway time when his world was first upended. Not long after, he started appearing on stage vocally and has ever since. And though as a critic and observer and fan I find the result of his vocal work to be often ineffective, there is probably no way to measure how valuable and recuperative and essential that time and space and freedom on stage have been for Bennett, a born performer and gifted interpretive artist. I tend to be of the less-is-more school, which is why I wish performers would stick to their strengths and not invade their colleagues’ turf, but then that kind of strategic calculation is the first thing you toss out the window when cancer kicks the door in.

Too often, we listen through the lens of our personality and experience or expectations. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it does create unavoidable distortions. Our impulse is to reify the strength or courage or simple act of physical endurance it might be for a man to stand, to sing, to ply the art of his trade in certain catastrophic circumstances – grief, fear, failure, … cancer. It’s an honest reaction. Perhaps in thus honoring the effort we hope to believe that we too will have such strength to stand should such misfortune ever befall us. But whatever evidence this endurance may be of eternal truths – of God’s sovereignty or the perseverance of the saints or the triumph of the spirit – such feats ought equally to remind us – me, you, we, I – that faith still wears a deeply human face in ordinary life. We may understand it better by and by, but it sure doesn’t hurt that there’s a song to sing or play or listen to or hum in the darkness of the soul’s long night to help us cope in the meantime. I think I’ll go hang up that poster now. And hope for another day, another concert, another chance to get that last signature.

If, as Cecilia Tichi claims in her book High Lonesome, the experience of country music starts in the car with the radio, the experience of southern gospel starts in the pew, the auditorium seat, the folding chair of the county fair. The live performance remains the basic unit of experience of in southern gospel. Bathed in the bright lights of the stage, arrayed in the poetry of musical lyrics, brought to life in the magical moment of live performance, southern gospel becomes psychospiritually accessible, it becomes experientially real, in a word, it is felt, in ways that no other form of contemporary evangelical expression can rival – not sermons, not motivational talks, not televangelism, not movies, not end-times fiction. None of it. To quote myself, live albums aren’t made, they happen.

Sometimes what happens in the single space of a live album can take years to bring off. Legacy 5’s latest project, Live in Music City, is in some ways the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of cultivating and planning and building that has created an impressively loyal fan base. Cult of personality is probably a little too strong of a description, but to say it and take it back leaves just about the right impression of L5’s effect on its fans. Roger Bennett’s and Scott Fowler’s big brother/little brother relationship on stage (their way of updating the Cathedrals’ “George and the Old Man” dynamic), supported by Glenn Dustin’s and Scott Howard’s Mutt and Jeff routine, have endeared L5 as a set of personalities and personae to a core of fans who, judging from the kind of email I get from people hacked off at me for saying anything remotely critical about “my boys,” think of the group as family members they see once or twice a year (especially popular is “Cuz,” the L5 insiders’ nickname for Dustin, who I seriously think has spawned a whole race of rabidly devoted Cuzzies … seriously, they’re emails are that weird).

Live in Music City manages to capture the intensity of L5’s effect on its fans, who keep selling out by the ever increasing thousands at the Opry Land Hotel every Memorial Day. At NQC, I heard L5 roadtest the first and last songs from the album: “Strike Up the Band’ and “Truth is Marching On,” but neither song made nearly impression in Louisville that it does on the cd. “Strike Up the Band,” a Diane Wilkinson number, is without question the best southern gospel opening tune to come along since, well, “Oh Come Along,” which Wilkinson also wrote (for the Cats back in the mid 90s; and if you’re keeping score at home, “Oh Come Along” replaced another Cats’ opener, “Plan of Salvation” as the strongest lead-off song for a live set). Like “Oh Come Along,” Strike Up the Band” embodies the anatomy of a strong opening song: showcase the group’s key strengths, include a few solo lines for the piano, and do so in a snappy upper-mid-tempo fashion. In “Strike Up the Band,” a vocal inversion on the last chorus puts tenor Frank Seamans in the clutch and he comes through expertly without overdoing it or showboating. Transferring the melodic center of the song to the tenor range has the effect of taking it up a notch early on, of reaching out emotionally to the crowd and confirming their desire to be entertained – we came here full of excitement and here’s a reason to be excited. And the transition between “Strike Up the Band” and “The Blood Covers it All” is a textbook example of letting solidly arranged music do the work of good showmanship for you. The crowd is roaring with delight at the end of “Strike Up the Band,” wanting more of what they just heard, and right in that moment when they just might wonder if they’ll get a turnaround (forgetting in their excitement, of course, that you never turn around your opening tune), they get hit with the intro of the next song – “The Blood Covers it All.”

Sometimes an introduction – just the instrumental intro of a song – can be so captivating, can manage to generate an enormous sense of anticipation and deferred excitement about what’s coming next, that it rewards listening to over and over by itself. This hasn’t happened to me in a while, so I had sort of forgotten how pleasant it is to be ambushed in this way and laugh out loud in admiration of simple brilliance. “The Blood Covers it All” is not a flashy tune, but it earns its keep the old-fashioned gospel way: with patiently built blocks of close harmonies and familiar lyrical tropes that call forth the experience they describe: “I’ll never again be condemned by my sin for the blood covers it all.” You’ll have to hear the song to understand how the tune and arrangement repurpose old images of blood and redemption into a musical testimonial about the joy of second chances and the gratitude that forgiveness evokes. But you won’t need to intellectualize things quite that much to enjoy it. For my part, I was hooked from the first. The intro kicks hard twice on the four chord and then falls into these pile-driving thirds that hammer out an irresistible come-to-Jesus kinda cadence. It’s the rare sort of new song that manages to be both fresh and familiar all at once, so that you find yourself singing along with it the first time you hear it.

Unfortunately, most of what “The Blood Covers it All” achieves is promptly squandered by a big zero of a tune from Rodney Griffin, “Temporary Tomb.” Roger Bennett, whose emcee work is typically outstanding, tries really hard in his set up to convince everyone how good the song is – going so far as to joke about how Griffin usually keeps the best stuff for Greater Vision but in this case he must’ve screwed up because L5 got a good ‘un or something like that. But it only takes a few bars of the song’s dreadfully unimaginative melody and stylistic incoherence (it sorta sounds like a high-school cheer - “Mohommed … or Buddah … which one … will save ya” - crossed with a Jesus Rock garage band) to realize that there’s more truth to Bennett’s joke than fiction (the grating guitars and the blaring horns sound like the arranger was trying to distract from the go-nowhereism of the song, but it only ends up making things more unbearable). Like “Right Side of the Dirt,” “Temporary Tune” has the feel of a hook or a good title that never quite found a good song to go with it.

But in general these numbers are the exception and not the rule (and the crowd doesn’t seem to care anyway). The music is for the most part impeccably arranged, the highlight being a pleasing little bit of vocal gimmickry at the end of “I’ve Been Changed.” The song is a Glenn Dustin vehicle that he sings serviceably well (and this is probably a good point to say how nice it is that this live album hasn’t been scrubbed squeaky clean with vocal overdubs after the fact … indeed, it’s all the more rewarding to hear Dustin drop a few notes or go sharp in places and still pull the song off because that’s what actually happens in live settings. Perfection isn’t necessary. But showmanship and stage presence are, even Dustin’s particular awe-shucks overgrown-boy brand of it.) But the real hook of the song is a rhythmically suspended bridge that staggers the lead-ins of each part one on top of the other until they all get on their notes and swoop together into the rest of the chorus. It takes the crowd a few goes with this before they get it, but then when they do, they start screaming with delight – actually screaming. Even allowing for some cooking of the applause tracks in post-production, the song really kills.

Other strong moments include “Stay Close to Me,” one of two songs that feature Roger Bennett vocally. Bennett’s voice hasn’t grown on me any since I first started hearing him a decade or so ago during his vocal cameos with the Cats. And I’ve mostly given up complaining about the schizophrenia that Bennett’s sometimes singing creates on stage for L5 because, frankly, I’m pushing against the ocean here. Not only do such complaints seem ungenerous during Bennett’s grim struggle with leukemia, but practically speaking his vocal walk-ons for one or two songs bring the house down. Of course, so do five minutes of somebody’s kid stammering her way through “Jesus Wuves Me.” Which is why I continue to believe that Bennett’s strength is at the piano and as an emcee, that his turns as a soloist come off a little like the president of the firm starring in all the company’s ads because he can, not because he can actually act. But then this is why I’m here and they’re there. At any rate, “Stay Close to Me” and “But God” (which, in the interest of fairness, I should probably mention is also a Rodney Griffin song) are both strong tunes that would stand on their own even without the powerful emotional effect Bennett creates when he sets up and sings a song in the context of cancer. The album winds up strongly with “My, My, My,” backed up by the Voices of Lee choir, and “Truth is Marching On” (you can read here about how and why the performance of this song is essentially a moot point now).

Listening to the album, I’m reminded of something a friend of mine said after hearing L5 a few times live. They’re much better in ensemble work than any one member is solo. This is especially true of Seamans, who can be underwhelming by himself but can singlevoicedly make the difference between good and great for the group in ensemble work (in this case, see “Strike Up the Band” and “My, My, My” especially). This is, I think, more than just so much proof of that old truism about sums and parts. L5’s sound and their act have crystallized into a single, disciplined expressive style capable of creating the conditions in which it will succeed, capable of making its own emotional weather on stage, capable, in short, of making live music, happen.

There are several ways to go about establishing a sg quartet as a major player, but two primary methods come to mind: The first I’ll call the Shock and Awe approach, which involves attention-grabbing devices that create the effect of edginess or hipness and a general sense of novelty. The other method I’ll call the Patient Investor approach, which is much less flashy. In this model, the group’s owner/managers map out where they want to go (thinking in five-, ten-, or even fifteen-year increments) and how they plan to get there, and then they stick to that plan of action like a patient investor, riding out personnel changes, creative differences, and the general ebb and flow of any business cycle by relying on the underlying strategy at the group’s core. It’s interesting that in the two groups that rose from the ashes of the Cathedrals - Signature Sound and Legacy Five - each of these approaches are being vigorously road tested. Ernie Haase and SSQ have taken to Shock and Awe, while Scott Fowler and Roger Bennett have led Legacy Five down the path of the Patient Investor. And L5’s latest project, Monuments, is something like an interim report on patient investing, coming half a decade or so after L5 was founded. And from the sound of things on Monuments, L5 is doing just fine - the strategy is working.

In keeping with the Patient Investor approach, Monuments is an even-keeled, safe project, cultivating a sound that values solidly arranged songs over showy or gimmicky tunes and prioritizes vocal precision and clean, exacting instrumentation over highly stylized stuff that may grab your attention but not necessarily hold it. Stylistically, the project is diverse with several stageable songs in the mix: most notably, the catchy, jazzish “If it Couldn’t be Done”; “Raised to Walk,” an upbeat hand-clapper featuring Glenn Dustin; “Out of my Darkness,” a more traditional, familiarly pleasing, older-fashioned quartet tune; and “Calvary Reminds Me,” perhaps the project’s most powerful and well-done number.

It’s probably not coincidental that “Calvary Reminds Me” is also the showcase tune for L5’s new tenor, Frank Seamans. Seamans’ voice is unmistakable (in a good way), supple and downright beautiful. He has an obvious knack for tapping into a song’s dramatic intensity, as he does with great skill and to fine effect on “Calvary Reminds Me,” a big ballad with sweeping strings, strong harmonies, and moving moments. What Seamans’ voice lacks in sheer diaphragmatic force, he makes up for by placing tones precisely and emphasizing them expertly - a skill that essentially carries the song “You Died For Me” (another ballad with an odd but, I think, finally interesting mix of musical themes). With Seamans, L5 has achieved a highly brandable sound that could well set the group apart vocally to a degree that hasn’t yet happened for them but ought to.

The project’s other standout is Scott Fowler. His sound and delivery have improved exponentially in the years since he first joined the Cathedrals, and with this project he seems to have come into his own as a lead singer. Predictably, Fowler is the centerpiece or anchoring force of several tunes - including “If it Couldn’t Be Done” and “Unless,” a power-ballad that’s above averagely arranged and includes some more breakout moments from Seamans. Fowler turns in his best performance, though, on “Roll Away,” a fun, groovy number in which all the vocalists’ obvious pleasure in singing the song breaks through the rarified atmosphere of the studio and really rings out. “Roll Away” includes some wonderful moments of ensemble and instrumental sweetness - enough of them, in fact, that I don’t so much mind that Glenn Dustin doesn’t quite nail that last low note (though in fairness, Dustin has several nice passages on the same song and others, including “Whosoever,” and his ensemble work is smooth and soothing). But Fowler is the song’s star, clearly proving his ability to take a song and make it his own, putting his indelible signature on it with understated, classy confidence that is strongly felt and technically solid.

The copy of the project I received for review was a pre-release cut that didn’t have the final mixes and finishes on it (at least I hope it didn’t anyway), nor did I get any liner notes or credits. Which is understandable but too bad, because I’d like to dole out the much-deserved praise for the instrumentalists, arrangers, and songwriters on the project. “When I Consider the Cross” is, along with “Calvary Reminds Me,” quite forcefully written, and the former song, featuring Scott Howard in one of his few spotlight moments, includes the very fine line, “apart from your mercy, my gain is loss when I consider the cross.” It’s fine indeed, though Howard has trouble carrying the song’s big-ballad feeling. Still the song itself is a good example of the kind of medium tempo tune that will slot nicely into a variety of places during a performance.

I feel a little bad dinging Howard for his work on “When I Consider,” since he has so few features on the project. Maybe this is the case because Roger Bennett is featured in places that logically feel like they ought to belong to Howard - namely, “It is the Truth” and “What God Whispers in the Night” (note: I didn’t get a listing of track titles, so the song names I’m using are my logical guesses that may obviously and probably will be different from what’s on the finished product). To be honest, from the very first time I heard L5 at their debut NQC showcase years ago, I’ve never cared much for the vocal part of the “pianist and vocalist” dual-role Bennett has taken on with the group. His vocal cameos can be very effective live (as they were with the Cathedrals toward the end), especially given Bennett’s formidable health problems and his reliance on his faith and living it out through sg as a way to get him through bad times as well as good. But it’s not at all clear that Bennett is as effective in the studio. His vocal skills have improved since, say, the “Don’t Be Afraid” recording with the Cathedrals on Alive: Deep in the Heart of Texas. But his talent is still undeniably at the keyboard, and it’s disappointing that a group as disciplined and focused as L5 persists in this disorienting role-swap. On stage, it can be distracting (what with Bennett constantly hopping up and down from the piano), and in the studio, it disperses the group’s otherwise admirable consistency and force.

Though the project ends with one of these Bennett cameos (”What God Whispers”), the project’s essence is captured elsewhere, a few songs earlier on the title track, “Monuments.” It’s no earthmover, but it contains in miniature all the keys to L5’s success: thoughtful arranging, precise voicing, consistently disciplined execution. Like all successful songs, “Monuments” develops a conceptually mature idea full of rich imagery that is rewardingly dense with meaning. What I like most, though, about Monuments - both the song and the project - is that it accomplishes at the level of performance what many groups often strive for but don’t reach in their ministries generally: it conveys a vision of Christian life, service, and action based on hopefulness and the promise of better days ahead than those in the past if you’ve laid the right foundation.