Comments on: Will Southern Gospel survive after Bill Gaither retires?

By: Merry Walker

Merry Walker — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:05:34 +0000

I attended the Asheville, NC 11-03-07 concert. There were 25 attending and we throughly enjoyed it. I have followed the Gaither’s for many years. I thought That Bill appeared to be ill. He just didn’t seem his self. Has he had an accident or health problems.?

By: Merry Walker

Merry Walker — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:05:06 +0000

I attend the Asheville, NC 11-03-07 concert. There were 25 attending and we throughly enjoyed it. I have followed the Gaither’s for many years. I thought That Bill appeared to be ill. He just didn’t seem his self. Has he had an accident or health problems.?

By: GospelMusicFan

GospelMusicFan — Tue, 01 May 2007 12:43:07 +0000

Maybe we should worry about the situation when someday in the future as Bill has stated when answering the retirement question, “When I hit the stonewall” or when Gloria would just simply say something like, “God uses interruptions to show us His will.”

By: Ron Fleshman

Ron Fleshman — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:17:59 +0000

John’s correct, of course. The problem is that before Gaither had his “accident” and made that first video, southern gospel was floundering somewhat. Only a few groups were nationally known and the older groups and artists were almost starving to death. Along came the idea of a video of southern gospel music mixed in with some other genres and you had the recipe for many people finding out about our music, buying our music, and loving our music.

Will someone else come along? Yes. Will they have the resources to do things tastefully and musically like Gaither? That’s the big question. One of the great things about the Gaither videos was the superior video and audio they provided. Prior to Gaither, most seemed like they were shot with someone’s old RCA VHS camcorder. The sound was horrible and the picture bad. Gaither brough professionalism to the videos and then to the stage. I just hope and pray that who ever gets the torch passed to them runs with it in the way Gaither has. Don’t do it if it isn’t going to be quality. That’s the only thing I worry about.

By: John

John — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:35:14 +0000

I don’t want to lessen Mr. Gaither’s influence on the current gospel music scene by my post. However, I would suggest you get a glass of water. Stick your finger in the glass. Then remove it. Is there a hole in the water. Of course not. When he’s gone, there will be someone to fill in the gaps.

When Gaither is gone, folks will no doubt miss him and his mammoth contributions. They have also missed V.O. Stamps, Frank Stamps, Big Chief Wetherington, G.T. Speer, and the list goes on and on.

Mr. Gaither has made a tremendous contribution to gospel music. Can it survive without him? Sure it can. He’s a great writer and a great ambassador. He has been able to get ideas from other “idea folks” and run with them with his financial resources. Can you say “Charlie Waller”? Where do you think the original idea for the homecoming projects originated?

We will certainly miss Mr. Gaither when he leaves the gospel music scene. Irreplaceable? I just don’t see it.