I was fortunate enough to see them in Fort Worth in April on the Friday night performance. I missed Guy. But, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the message was still shared. And, for one, I am thrilled that Michael English has been welcomed back to the family. We Christians have a bad habit of killing our wounded, and seeing that young man (yes, ‘young’ even though I”m 54) stand and sing with conviction and power was worth the ticket price, and the drive. That’s what the Faith is about anyway, right? Redemption.

The GVB has changed. Change in and of itself is neither good nor bad; it is inevitable. I look forward to seeing much more of the “new” Gaither Vocal Band in the years to come.

The group has never gone with a five member combo at least “officially” in the past, I just don’t see it happening now. In fact, I personally prefer the sound of the stack with ME as lead, even though Guy had incredible range because ME is more of a traditional lead and one of the best quartet backup singers and arrangers in Nashville the past 15 years.

Sadly, with Guy’s voice the way it has been the past year or so, I would imagine ME and Guy have about the same working range these days too, even though many will argue with me there.

I wish them the best, and I personally think the new combo of MP, ME, Mark and Bill will really, really sound good with the new arrangements. We will certainly miss Guy, but I look forward to the future of the group.

One last note. Considering the condition of the Christian Music industry the past 5 years or so, moving over to work with Bill is a good move for MP and ME, it isn’t like they are going to miss bookings over adding Vocal Band dates.

We’ve already heard quite a bit from Bill Gaither and Marshall Hall. First Gaither did a press release and an extensive interview with Daniel Britt. More recently, we’ve had several blog posts from Emily Sutherland and a post or two from Wes Hampton. Several of these share thoughts directly from Hall.

And here’s the thing: While we might not know every detail about the change, we know all we need to know. Hall is planning to pursue a worship leader position, and Penrod is planning to pursue a solo career, and they appear to remain on good terms with Gaither. As an example, take this recent Wes Hampton blog post:

“Marsh will be filling in during the Ft. Myers concert this next weekend! Mark and David have some last schedule conflicts, so Marsh has graciously stepped in to help Bill and the GVB out. What a guy he is. So, for all those critics out there who seem to know what’s going on and say that there’s bad blood between Marsh and Bill and whomever else…there you go.”

That tells us enough to know that Hall didn’t leave on bad terms, and that’s really all we need to know. Even if Gaither did raise the idea, it could have been in the context of accelerating a move that Hall was already contemplating himself.

I haven’t closed comments on those threads yet, because I generally avoid doing that whenever possible. But seriously, folks, I don’t think we need to know more than we already do.

Wes unfortunately now does look a bit like a teenager with the new line up.