How Do You Get REady for Football Season?

Question. As I read sports blogs everywhere, I keep hearing that folksa re getting ready for football season. They can't wait. How do you do that? Do you paint up your face and start screaming, "pass interference?" Do you practice tearing down goal posts? I just wonder.

It's still baseball season. It's summer. The weather is hot and the living is easy. summer's for the beach, cookouts, beer, and baseball. My team, the Cincinnati Reds are in a pennant race for the first time since 1999, but no matter. It's always baseball season until they quit in October. Holding your breath until football season means snow, cold weather, and no outdoor activities, unless you like to ski or enjoy scraping your windshield. I won't wish away my life for that.

What is it about football that makes American's go nuts. I have friends who just count the days until the NFL draft or the start of college practice. It drives me nuts. What makes us go so nuts about a game that favors the haves over the have-nots?

You ever see the USA Today's Top 25 poll and follow it over the last ten years. The same teams are at the top every year. Oh, my alma mater, West Virginia, sneaks in there once in awhile, but it's usually the same faces. The NFL is the same. You got your Patriots or your Cowboys or your Colts and once in awhile someone else sneaks in. And it's all violence all the time. "Kill the quarterback," or "tear his leg off," is the battle cry. I like football, but to go to that extreme? I must be a wimp.

Now, baseball, that's the sport. This year, the Reds, Padres, Twins, White Sox, Tigers, and even the Brewers are still in it. Underdog City. How can you not like that as well as sunny skies, warm temperatures, and lazy afternoons? I guess without blood there is no victory.

I don't understand. Forgive me.

Get Them While You Can

One of the great treats that anyone who loves gospel music has had over the last few years is the group Garry Jones put together in about 2003 called Mercy's Mark. Jones, who played with some of the best as pianist and arranger and founded Signature Sound with Ernie Haase, put together a group that did some wonderful things from its inception until last year. The original group of Josh Feamster, Anthony Facello, Chris West and Jones put out one major album that was self titled. I don't remember when a debut album was so good (with Signature Sound's "Stand By Me," also created by Jones being close).

Unfortunately, not much else was released by this combination before they split up. You can buy the "Remembering the Greats" CD or DVD from NQC 2004 for a couple of tunes, but outside of that, you're sunk. Late last year, West and Facello left the group to supposedly form another group which has not come to pass. I haven't heard the new group, so I can't pass judgement, but that sound and those arrangements can only be heard in two other places.

I stumbled onto what I was told was concert CD last year. It was called "Southern Selections, Vol 1." Great stuff with Facello singing that distinctive tenor and West rivaling Aaron McCune as successor to the Big Chief of Statesmen fame. Recently, i discovered that there was a second volume and it's only available on MM's website, www.mercysmark.com. It's Volume 2. Get it before it's gone. You won't be disappointed if you are a MM fan or like good, creative southern gospel music.

By the way, I do not know Garry Jones, nor am I on his payroll. I just like it and thought you might too.

GVB Video is fantastic

Those that know me would say that I'm a sound fanatic. Nothing upsets me more than poor recordings. When I was a teenager, I was heavily into the instrumental music of Billy Vaughn and other artists. When a recording came out sounding really bad, I used to send it back to the manufacturer and get a new one. One such recording was Vaughn's "Nashville Saxophones." The sound was almost unlistenable, so I sent it back. They sent me anotherone that was equally poor. It was the engineering, plain and simple and really rare for Dot Records at that time. I put it far away from my playing albums. I'm like that.

So many times, southern gospel artists put out "projects" (why do sg artists call them projects and not CD's or albums?) that simply do not sound good. That is especially tue of DVD's. The "Walk the Talk" DVD by Gold City was so bad that I haven't watched it but a couple of times. Bill Gaither's video and DVD projects always offer us a good sound, with the notable exception of "Ryman Homecoming," which was part of the Nashville Network's live program of a few years ago and Gaither can be excused for that.

The Gaither Vocal Band's new DVD called "Give it Away," gives us the new GVB (Wes, Marsh, Gy and Bill), Signature Sound, Gordon Mote (their new pianists and a tremendous artist in his own right), and Larry Morbitt in concert at the Indiana Roof, the scene of many of Gaither's best DVD's (Freedom Band, Journey to the Sky, Harmony in the Heartland, etc.).

It is energy-filled and the vocal band does most of its new album, which though uneven, is a fine recording. The bonus is the energetic crowd and one Gordon Mote. Mote is a great singer and tremendous piano player who also happens to be blind. He fits in well with the vocal band and the music and the sound is wonderful. His rendition of "The Old Gospel Ship" raises more than the Indiana Roof and proves that there is some new talent in our genre that doesn't fit the mold of what we consider "normal," something that is frowned upon in sg. He also does a love song to his wife, "If They Could See You Through My Eyes," which is simply beautiful. Find that on another sg DVD or album.

Being one who wishes Gaither would get "everyone" together again at the Indiana Roof for a songfest, he does pay tribute to the past with an interview with the Jordanaires' Gordon Stoker, but one can tell that the future is less artists in Gaither's future concerts. Many will love this, but I'll miss the mass choir.

Pick this one up if you can. It's fantastic.