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A reader points out that Mike and Kelly Bowling now appear on NQC’s Tuesday mainstage program.

Also of note, another reader points out that the schedule clarifies that it’s the original Couriers (Dave, Duane, and Neil) appearing on Friday night, not the modern-day Couriers, which recently became a duo.

The National Quartet Convention has posted their 2009 schedule here. I’m delighted to see that four of the groups I named in this post as deserving to be on the mainstage made it on, including my # 1, 2, and 4.

Worth noting:

• The Blackwood Brothers are on the Monday schedule.
• The Chuck Wagon Gang is back, on Tuesday. (I seem to think the Roarks might also be new.)
• The Collingsworth Family is on on Wednesday and Saturday, which I guess means they’ll be staying for the week.
• Ricky Atkinson & Compassion is on on Thursday. If they’ve managed to keep Gene McDonald at bass (no word from that camp lately) that will be one set definitely worth catching.
• The Couriers are on the Friday schedule. I’m thinking this might mean the current group (which, oddly enough, seems to be a duo, at least for now), but it would be interesting if it was Dave, Duane, and Neil.
• The Gaither Vocal Band and Signature Sound are back, on Friday.
• The Diplomats have a set on Friday evening.
• The Hunters are added to the Saturday schedule. Was this the group that did a highly praised morning devotions hour with the Hoppers a few years back?

The bigger news is often who’s not there. No Mike & Kelly Bowling, Crabb Revival, Ball Brothers, Crossway, Browns, or Imperials. The Dixie Melody Boys are still there, but are cut to one set (perhaps till they establish a more predictable lineup.) It seems as though the NQC is generally taking a more traditional slant this year, and that’s quite fine by me. Perhaps they’ve found out that’s what the fans want.

This is about the time of year when the directors of the National Quartet Convention start putting together the following year’s mainstage lineup.

They had a great lineup last year. Virtually every group I heard on mainstage belonged there (and I’ll keep my thoughts on the few exceptions to myself).

But there are a couple of groups that I think they would be wise to add this year that weren’t on last year’s lineup. Here’s my top 5 [edit: 10]:

1. The Collingsworth Family. Each year it gets a little harder to believe that they’re still not on mainstage. Though they did leave a day early for a concert this year, they have been faithful to the fans and the convention, manning a booth for at least the last several years and doing those little two-song sets in the regional artist showcases.
2. The Chuck Wagon Gang. The rationale is simple. They’ve been there for years, there’s a good chunk of fans that love ‘em, and their sound is unique. They don’t sound like anyone else on the program, and some variety is nice.
3. N’Harmony. I’ve heard rumors about a one-year-rule, that groups have to be going for at least a year before they’ll get an invitation to the mainstage. The group had formed several months before NQC, though their first concert wasn’t until a little while afterwards. This group’s sound is solid and they are worthy of a mainstage spot.
4. The Blackwood Brothers. Even if you set aside the fact that this is the group that started the convention, this group is worth giving at least one slot on their own merits. Jimmy Blackwood has built a group with the classic Blackwoods sound, anchored around a voice which sounds so much like his father James Blackwood’s voice that hearing them is almost like stepping back in time. Plus, they are one of a very few groups to do the two-microphone gig (the Dixie Echoes being the only other major group that comes to mind). It’s rare enough that it sets them apart.
5. Liberty Quartet. They did so well in the showcases this past year that they got an invitation to do a song on the mainstage Saturday night before the Fan Awards. This year, I’d love to see them get a direct invitation.
6. The Ball Brothers. I simply can’t believe that I forgot the Ball Brothers and the rest of these five.
7. Old Paths Quartet. They stand a serious chance of being one of the new hottest groups around. Especially with their live band.
8. Diplomats.
9. Weatherfords. Even if their past wasn’t enough, they are good enough now that they’re worthy of mainstage on their own merits.
10. The Melody Boys Quartet.

The danger of listing only 5 is that there a number of other worthy groups that I didn’t name. I would agree that many of them are deserving of getting at least one set in the mainstage. So…who are your top 5?

It’s still too early after NQC for the news flow to start back up. So here’s another NQC-related thought I had over the weekend:

It’s a little odd that possibly 2007’s most popular song (”I Can Pray”) was disqualified on a technicality, but the winning song (”Look For Me”) is a song that the Kingsmen introduced 35 years ago and the winning group (Booth Brothers) recorded some seven years ago.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting a conspiracy; I know Singing News bases its rules on radio airplay. As I understand, “I Can Pray” was apparently singled at the wrong time to be qualified. But should rules that produce a result this incongruous perhaps be reconsidered?

(Keep suggestions constructive. The past is past; focus on the future.)

It’s amazing to look back at how technology has changed over the past few years. Just a few years ago, the new thing was day-by-day coverage of the National Quartet Convention. Written summaries were novel.

Two or three years ago, digital camera technology and upload bandwidth speeds had progressed to where daily updates of photos were feasible.

Last year was the first year when NQC offered a live video stream. Last year and this year, word is that it’s been riddled with technical glitches. This year, my video clip coverage here was (to my knowledge) the first time one of the most active Southern Gospel websites posted day-by-day video clips from the floor and Freedom Hall. While I know that the quality my little handheld camera produced wasn’t great for the Freedom Hall clips, it’s been a lot of fun being a little innovative.

So…what’s the next step forward? How can coverage be improved next year?

I have finally finished getting up all my photo galleries and videos from NQC 2008. So to wrap up coverage, here are some highlights and suggestions.

Highlights:

• Wes Burke over at Burke’s Brainwork asks what NQC 2008’s breakout artist was. This year, I do not think it was a group as much as it was an individual: Jacob Kitson. All day on Monday and until Greater Vision’s set on Tuesday, it was easy to find time to talk with him. Quite a bit of the time, he was either standing at the booth or talking with one or two people. On Greater Vision’s Tuesday set, he was introduced via the song “Little is Much”; for the rest of the week, if you wanted to reach him, you had to wait in a line as long as the line to talk to Gerald Wolfe.
• Talking with artists. The artists do this week for the fans as much as anything else. They are happy to spend time talking with fans who come up. I had many great conversations with artists this week (and for whatever it’s worth, those who didn’t already know me were happy to talk with me long before I mentioned that I operate a Southern Gospel website).
• Lari Goss’s appearance at Pianorama, playing “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” has to go down as a highlight.

Suggestions:

• Many sets this year felt a little too rushed, as groups tried to fit four songs in before the clock ran out. Let the headliners for each night sing more than 17 minutes; perhaps assign two to four artists as the headliners for each night, and give each of them a half-hour at the end of the concert. Don’t have any group be a headliner more than once, though the groups can still have briefer sets at other points in the week.
• Keep Gaither and Signature Sound. One of my co-workers, who spent more time at my magazine publisher’s booth than I did, had time to observe the audience and commented that on Thursday, with the Gaither team showed up, the enthusiasm level at the convention just came to a whole new level.
• Invite the Collingsworth Family to appear on main stage. Theirs was the biggest omission from this year’s program.
• If Singing News ever drops Fan Awards, instead do NQC Fan Awards, voted on the spot by ticketholders (and possibly exhibitors, artists, and media; that part is debatable). You’d probably be guaranteed of 4000-8000 votes.
• Set aside an hour or two each day before the main program begins to allow lesser known groups to sing on the main stage. This would be a level somewhere between showcase and a major mainstage appearance. There are so many deserving groups currently appearing in the showcases that deserve a mainstage slot, even if it is lower profile than the 6:00-12:00 program.
• During this time, set aside an hour or two before the main program on one of the big days (Thursday-Saturday) to put on the main stage all the classic groups that deserve to be there because of their heritage and what they have meant to past National Quartet Conventions. Groups like the Blackwood Brothers, Chuck Wagon Gang, Naomi and the Segos, and the Weatherfords deserve some recognition for past accomplishments, no matter if they currently keep a lower profile.

Liberty Quartet (from Boise, Idaho) did so well in the showcases that they were invited to sing a song on the main stage. There was quite a bit of noise as people were finding their seats for the Fan Awards, but here is what I could catch on video:

One thing highlights videos and online feeds cannot capture is what it’s like to be in the hall at the end of the week. There is sadness (mixed with relief for a few) that another year is drawing to and end. And after a full week with too little sleep, you never know who might make an appearance:

Can anyone identify this voice?

PHOTO GALLERY: Day 6

Day 6 got off to a strong start with the Parade of Pianos, hosted (as it was last year) by Gerald Wolfe. This year, perhaps due to Dino having his own showcase, most of the pianists (Josh Simpson, Roy Webb, Stan Whitmire, Janet and Sharon Hayes, and Tim Parton) played two songs. Channing Eleton, Jeff Stice, and Gerald Wolfe each played one (though Stice’s was an extended medley of several songs).

As always, there were several strong performances. Tim Parton’s rendition of “Wonderful Grace of Jesus” and Stewart Varnado’s “Just a Little While” seemed to go over particularly well. But the “moment” of the afternoon was Lari Goss playing “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” Gerald Wolfe took several minutes to set it up, and Lari took several minutes afterwards giving a testimony of how he had been healed from cancer. Even without the compelling personal storyline, the song would still have been the highlight of the afternoon; Goss used the orchestration from Greater Vision’s Hymns of the Ages project and was joined by the trio singing the last verse or two of the song. (For a second time this week, I found myself thinking that if Greater Vision had to pick any project to tape new vocals with the current lineup, Hymns of the Ages would be the one to do.)

A pre-Fan Awards program featured one song each from four groups, two talent contest winners and two groups that did a particularly good job in the artist spotlight showcases. The talent contest winners were Desiree-Jones, who sang “In Your Tabernacle,” and the Taylors, a brother-sister quartet from North Carolina. The two artists that the board deemed to have done a particularly good job in the showcases were Liberty Quartet and the Needhams. Liberty Quartet nailed a rendition of “I’m His,” featuring their tenor singer, Keith Waggoner. The Needhams delivered a well-arranged version of “Behold The Lamb.”

Singing News has posted a list of their Fan Awards winners, so it would be rather redundant to reproduce that list. A few general observations: It was a Booth Brothers sweep, to the point that they even won “Song of the Year” for a 35-year-old song they had recorded seven years ago and singled to radio to fill a gap between mainline releases. Mistake me not, “Look for Me” is a great song, and worthy of a Song of the Year award, but the 1974 award would have been about perfect.

Other than the Booth Brothers sweep, this year’s Fan Awards seemed to be rather predictable (results here). Ivan Parker won soloist, Rodney Griffin won Songwriter, the Hoppers won Mixed Group, Kim Hopper won Soprano and Female Singer, et cetera. There were few if any surprises. Jeff Stice was widely expected to win pianist, though there was some thought that if anyone else won, it might be Kim Collingsworth (edit: not Hopper, as I originally wrote!) Jeremy Lile was more or less expected to win Horizon Individual. (Speaking of Horizon Individuals, as an aside: Jacob Kitson will be next year’s Horizon Individual. Just watch.) The young artist seemed to be one of the more open categories, but a friend I was talking with before the Fan Awards was right on with his prediction that the Perrys’ onstage charisma combined with the Trammell name would have Nick be picked.

A side note: I talked with Danny Jones after the set, and asked about the success of making the online ballot available. He indicated that online ballots did form a significant part of the submissions, and the thinking seems to be towards keeping both forms available.

I stayed for the Talley Trio’s set; they sang, among other songs, “Winds of this World,” “Too Much to Gain to Lose,” “Orphans of God,” and “Testify.” After their set, I spent most of the rest of the evening in the hall, helping tear down booths and bidding farewell to quite a few friends I only see once a year at NQC. Via the live video feed, I did notice particularly strong sets from the Kingsmen and the Hoppers; in fact, the Hoppers’ set was so strong that after watching part of “Grace was Greater Than Sin,” I headed to the hall to catch the rest of the song and their finale, “Shoutin’ Time.”

It was an amazing week. The highlights are too many to recount. The evening mainstage performances are only part of the experience–perhaps even a small part. You can meet artists after concerts, but with the long hours the exhibit hall is open, NQC provides a unique opportunity for those willing to wait around an artists’ booth for a slow time to have exended conversations.

Groups put together their best NQC specials, and several tables always have old records, CDs, and tapes, sometimes at bargain prices. Just as an example, on Saturday night, an hour or so before all the booths were torn down, I found that someone who was selling 5 records for $10 earlier in the week was selling 20 for $20.

Artist spotlight showcases in the afternoons provide the opportunity to discover some of Southern Gospel’s next big acts.

There are always a few showcases, like Pianorama, that are only possible at NQC.

Words can’t quite capture exactly what it’s like to be there. It’s just something that has to be experienced to be understood.