SouthernGospelBlog.com

Grant Barker, of Winterville, North Carolina will join the Kingsmen as their bass guitarist. He will replace Jason Selph, who left at NQC.

I honestly don’t know how long this story has been out there (or if I’m the first to run the story) but I just noticed it this afternoon. I was looking at the Kingsmen website–which seems to be re-designed every two months but is never completed. (Some of the pages have been “coming soon” for most of the year!) A new design seems to be posted every time Nick Succi writes a column, and I noticed this story in Nick’s column.
Anyhow, back to topic, Nick has a fascinating column. Check it out.

(And can anyone tell me which band he is referring to concerning the April 1977 Freedom Hall appearance? Is Nick Succi a Beatles fan?)

The next Mark Trammell Trio project, Once Upon a Cross, is set to be released on February 20, 2007. Here is the album’s (provisional) song list:

1. Once Upon A Cross
2. However I Go
3. Moving The Hand Of God
4. Let Me Bring Your Children Home
5. I Still Believe
6. Won’t It Be Wonderful There
7. Weary At The Well
8. You Can’t Hold Back The Flood
9. Heaven Can’t Be Far Away
10. Even Thomas Couldn’t Doubt It
11. America The Beautiful

David Staton, lead singer for the LeFevre Quartet, has made another blog post, attempting to clear the air with ways in which his original post could have been (and was) misunderstood. Essentially, this post argues that it is simply a bad business decision for the NQC not to put the LeFevre Quartet on the main stage. He explained the following on his myspace blog:

My comments about LeFevres not being included on the mainstage next year was not directed as a slam against the NQC board. As a business person, I think that it’s not a good business decision to exclude the artists that have enough of a following to cast a winning vote in any fan award category. I can name several other names that have won fan awards and not been included on main stage and my opinion on excluding them is the same. It’s business 101. Find out what the market wants and give it to them. It’s just good business across the board. In my previous blog, I simply opened it up to invite those who voted for us to let NQC know that they would like to see us in the evening line up. To me, it’s the only diplomatic thing to do.

But Dale Embry, a former radio station DJ who posted a comment on the SG Blog News story (link added by express request), has an interesting–and different–take on the importance of winning a Fan Award:

When I had my radio station it took about a hundred votes to win DJ of the year. I was talking to a HIGH official this week, and the Horizon award was probably won by less than 300 votes. So, its a big deal to the artist to have 300 folks like them. But, to NQC they are trying to draw 30,000 people. So to them it didnt mean a whole lot.

Very interesting. We’ll see where all of this falls out.