Another blog entry refered to what will happen to SG Music when Bill Gaither retires. It’s almost silly that that dialog was even opened, as Gospel Music does not rely on one man to survive. Sure, more people may have been exposed to SG Music as a result of Gaither’s videos, but going back to a previous poster’s message on this board, music does not save anybody. It may be a seed that opens one’s heart, but nothing but the blood of Jesus can save anybody! A preacher can’t save you, a sermon can’t save you, a singer can’t save you, a song can’t save you…good works can’t save you, being a good moral upstanding person can’t save you…only He can. SG Music needs a REVIVAL not centered on persons, groups, personalities, money, the past, etc…the focus needs to get back into the Bible and its teachings, and most certainly on Jesus.

We all have lost friends and family members…many lost people won’t go to Gospel concerts…another pet peeve of mine is the word “concerts”…is this about entertainment or about reverently worshiping, thanking, praising, and sharing the Lord and all that He has done for us…I feel that a very large number of soloists and groups started with the right intentions…but now their focus has changed to entertainment and how much can I make out of it. Back to the sharing of music thing, if I were to hear a good song that I felt spoke to a specific need of a lost friend or family member, I would seriously ponder sending them the file of the song or words of the song and have them listen to it or read it as “just a song that they might enjoy/like”…and as a result, their heart may get unhardened, and they might just have a spark of desire to get saved as a result or at least talk with me or with someone about what they’ve heard.

Yes, this nation and others have copyright laws, but if every man, woman, boy, and girl were saved and were to abide by the teachings of the Bible, there wouldn’t be a need for such laws. There would be no stealing, nor would there be the greed and pride that is so rampant in the Gospel Music industry. I know it takes finances to reach the world…even those here in America…but Paul reached many thousands of people and eventually lost his life here on earth as a result of his lifetime of faithful ministry. He didn’t have an air-conditioned bus or the niceties of making money off those he came to reach with the Gospel.

A humbling experience happened just this past week. The Allen Family was at our church this past Wednesday night just to go to church. They were asked to sing a few songs, and they also had a table set up outside in the foyer. They didn’t have set costs on any of the items on their table…it was by donation exclusively. $1 or $100, you could have it. Nor did they ask for even a love offering. That was truly putting God first…knowing that He would provide for their every need no matter what. And with 8 children to feed and support, that spoke volumes to me! I wish more groups would put God first and let Him control their “finances.”

Now, if you go looking in iTunes Music Store for Southern Gospel Music, you will get poor results looking by Genre. You’d figure that it would all fall in a logical Genre like Inspirational, but unfortunately much of it is miscategorized. I’ve seen some true Southern Gospel Quartet albums miscategorized as Blues, for instance. That is why I search by the group name.

Pardon me while I drag out my soapbox for anyone who is willing to listen to me ramble…

One problem with a lot of artists who don’t move to digital distribution is that they believe that if they distribute their music as files, this somehow is going to ignite a wildfire of copying and sharing because it is ’so easy’. Never mind the fact that the effort to copy digitally-distributed music for your friends is no different than the difficulty in copying tapes in the 80’s and CDs in the 90’s and today, but the producers and artists are not well-enough versed in the technology or non-RIAA-biased statistics to realize this.

I would be interested to see a blind survey of concert-goers sometime to determine the benefit of digital distribution to the average quartet. I would guess that for every one person who will buy a CD, there are 8 that will not because there are not enough of their favorite songs on the album or there are too many unknown songs on the album and that makes them uneasy with spending $15-$20 for the CD. I would also guess that, out of those 8, you’d find at least 3 or 4 that would be willing to buy their favorite songs by that group digitally at a cost up to $1.40 and out of those 3 or 4, I’d guess that 2 would see themselves as likely to buy as many as 15 or 20 songs from a single artist like that. In my book, some sale is better than no sale at all, so even if every digital buyer only bought one or two songs, as long as there was enough sales volume to warrant the sales effort and cost (which is minimal), I’d say some sale is better than no sale at all. And again, for the ‘oh no, the person will share the file’ crowd, it is truely just as easy and likely that someone will copy/share their CD they bought from the table (as Daniel Ball’s comment potentially suggests in DM’s article). In fact, I myself would be more afraid of copying a digitally-downloaded file and sharing it than I would a CD. There’s a certain anonymity to buying and copying a CD, but the digitally-downloaded file is, in a way, linked to your name when you purchase it.

Of course, that is a LOT of guessing, but it is worth some thought by those artists who are hesitant to enter the world of digital sales.