averyfineline

I may or may not decide to weigh in at my usual length tonight. I’m going to let the spirit move. In the meantime, feel free to talk amongst yourselves about what you’re hearing, whether in the hall or from afar.

Via Daniel Mount (via Dean Adkins’ YouTube video archive), a clip of the Cathedrals singing “He Left it All” with the rarely remembered Kurt Young:

Some random thoughts:
1. That’s a really fine song.
2. One of my favorite parts of this clip is Mark Trammell’s harmonic inflections on the choruses. A lot of people - including Trammell […]

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 […]

Today, a cd I bought off Adam Edwards on eBay arrived, the Perrys, Center Stage Live, from 1996.

This was the era of Mike Bowling and Nicole Watts, when the Perrys were still with Eddie Crook, and Crook’s fingerprints are all over the project stylistically: the driving country rhythms and often overbearing steel guitar; the […]

Consider the difference between this:

And this:

I’m actually not sure I prefer the big symphonic too-muchness of the latter version (though that wood-wind descant in the first verse is pretty neat and the brass section is a classy touch), but I don’t think anyone can listen to that earlier clip and think that the Hoppers would […]

“Much Too High a Price,” Larnelle Harris, From a Servant’s Heart. I began my short lived career as a gospel pianist pretty typically as a teenager: no training, no real applicable sense of the stylistic […]

“What You Say is What you Get.” Christ Tabernacle Choir. Back in the day, Reba Rambo (Dottie’s daughter) wrote a song called “What You Say Is What You […]

This is more of an ambling free-association but hey .. it’s my site. Anyway, I had to spend some time in the car this evening and I took the Perrys, This is the Day album, along with. […]

The Perrys. “I Rest My Case At the Cross” (Changed Forever, Daywind, 2002).
Songs become lodged our lives and memories often because of serendipity. Sometimes by fortuitous happenstance, […]

The Kingsmen. “Leave Your Sorrows and Come Along” (Stand Up at Opryland USA, 1985; also available Riversong’s Kingsmen Collection, Vol. I). Oh my. Here we go. The Kingsmen at Opryland, 1985. […]

When regular correspondent JG pressed me for a list of top 5 groups, the Ruppes ended up on my list without too much hesitation, and I was happy to find JG at least notionally agreeing with me: […]

(I of III)
I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days about a song the Cathedrals recorded fifteen or so years ago for their 25th-anniversary celebration album. The project as a whole is by no means the […]