Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Changes Really Haven't Made Things Better

I've been away for awhile so several reasons. I flirted with another blogging system and found it to be so confusing to me that I just gave up. Couple that with the general funk that S0uthern Gospel Music and my other passions have been in and you get a lack of creativity. Although I keep getting emails to come back and write, I've resisted the urge until now, but I had to get something off my chest.

I rediscovered southern gospel music in 1999. As I've said before I was raised in a family where my father was a sg singer, but other forms of music appealed to me more, and I just quit listening. Then I picked up the Andy Griffith CD's of hymns and got the Gaither Nashville DVD for Christmas in 1999 and got hooked again. It was an exciting time. I got to see waht was happening with the Cathedrals and Howard and Vestal Goodman. I got to see my hero Jake Hess again. All was good. I spent hundreds of dollars on DVD's. I bought the Gaither catalog. I bought (and continue to) all the NQC DVD's. And it happened.

Gold City went from Jay, Jon, Mark, and Tim to Jay, Jon, Daniel, and Tim to Steve, Jon, Daniel and Bill to Steve, Jon, Daniel and Aaaron to Steve, Bruce, Daniel and Aaron. It's a whole new crew, and one I'll admit I've never heard...yet. That's in only nine years! I could go on and on. The Perrys have two new members. Palmetto State has only one surviving member and the Florida Boys are history (except for the new Florida Boys, which do not contain any of the characters who made up the old Florida Boys). Mercy's Mark, which I considered one of the great hopes for the genre, are gone. Gaither quit making videos that brought everyone together, and Ernie Haase and Signature Sound beame a household name (which is not a bad thing).

In the meantime, we've lost some great voices. Anthony Facello is a good example. Mercy's Mark's tenor was selling real estate last I heard and trying to form a new group which is probaly doomed to failure. Same goes for the other members of that great group, but I do understand that Josh Feamster and Chris West are trying to put together a group. In the hard times we are now experiencing, that might be a reach. Loren Harris, former lead singer for the Perrys is nowhere to be found. Gold City's former lead singer, Jonathan Wilburn is selling cars. John Rulapaugh, Rick Fair, and Burman Potter (of Palmetto State) are in a theatre somewhere in Tennessee singing. Jason Waldroup left Greater Vision to go into the ministry. It all seems so unfair. That group of singers could make up two or three great groups to come to your town or mine.

Whether it's economics or conflicts, we've lost a lot in the last few years. Of course there are survivors. Brian Free's group has rebounded nicely replacing Keith Plott (one of my favorite bass singers) with Jeremy Lile. The Gaitehr Vocal Band survived without David Phelps and Mark Lowry (though barely).

I noticed today that the economy must be pretty bad. It's been nearly two years since Gold City released a CD. They were usually good for one major project and a table project every year. The number of concerts in my area has dwindled to nothing in the last six months. Gaither continues to supress the geat taping (so I hear) mad ewith all the artists in Nashville last year (all we get is three hymns projects, which were great and the Picnic DVD's which were OK).

It's been a big letdown for me, but maybe it's just me.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home