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Doug at the Averyfineline blog opines (with support from a Madeline L’Engle quote) that bad art is bad religion.

I disagree with L’Engle; what makes art “good” is subjective, and differs from culture to culture, while what makes religion “good” is an objective absolute, doctrinal fidelity to Scripture.

That’s the doctrine side of the issue; as for the art side (and here most particularly the music side) of the equation, I see two Biblical requirements for good music.

First, it has to be from the heart. There are many references in the Psalms to making a joyful noise, among them Psalm 98:4: “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” (Also see Psalm 66:1, 81:1, 95:1, 95:2, 98:6, and 100:1).

People in other countries and cultures use different musical tonal systems than we do, or even perhaps sometimes an atonal system. While I may not personally enjoy it, I am convinced that in God’s eyes, that’s just as much good art as the finest examples of Southern Gospel I can point out.

Second, it has to be done to the best of our abilities. Colossians 3:32 says to do what we do “heartily” (or “with all your heart”), “as to the Lord, and not unto men.”

The Bible says to make a joyful noise, and do what we do to the best of our abilities. Adding a requirement that it has to fit a certain tonal system, a certain style within that system, or a certain level of musical quality within that style, (here’s a phrase for you, Doug) is superimposing the practices of men on the precepts of God.

For several years, the Mark Trammell Trio has been the sort of group that gets to hear a songwriter’s fourth- or fifth-best song of the year. Now, given that we’re talking professional songwriters here, that’s still going to be a decently strong tune. But there is a slight difference; both are good tunes, but the better one is just a little more powerful.

Well, with this project, the Mark Trammell Trio has broken out of that mold. There are several songs on this project that were probably their respective songwriters’ strongest efforts of the year…and when we’re talking songwriters like Kyla Rowland, Marty Funderburk, Dianne Wilkinson, and Rodney Griffin, that is really saying something. (Okay, okay, Rodney’s isn’t his best song of the year. As Roger Bennett says, he saves those for Greater Vision. But back to topic.)

The Mark Trammell Trio has assembled its strongest collection of songs to date. Though liner notes are often be hyperbole, the notes on this project aren’t stretching the truth much if at all:

Eric Phillips, Distin Sweatman, Steve Hurst and Mark Trammell have made a covenant, one with the other, to deliver their best effort to date…. It seems that Mark’s Cathedral Quartet schooling is resurfacing in the area of song selection and arrangement, and all who know him are excited to hear what’s next. Mark states, “In over thirty years of singing, I’ve never been more pleased with the finished project than I am with this one. I still believe that it’s about the message and not so much the messenger.”

The project starts off with a Dianne Wilkinson / G.L. Nipper / Mike Richards song, “Even Thomas Couldn’t Doubt it.” This song features Mark Trammell. It’s not the strongest tune on the project (or even Wilkinson’s strongest number), but I actually like its placement here. It’s a good, solid song and sets the pace for the project. While a project that starts with its best song builds momentum which it typically loses by the end, over the first five or six songs this project just keeps getting better and better.

The second song on the project, a 1999 Chris Allman song called “Won’t it Be Wonderful There,” is probably Eric Phillips’ strongest solo. The Celtic feel of the song is something the Mark Trammell Trio hasn’t tried before, but they pull it off well. The first time I heard this song, I wondered why it had a built-in turnaround. But the second time, I paid a little closer attention and tried to picture Eric singing it live. This song should go over very well in that setting, and I think most audiences’ response will, indeed, demand an encore.

Kyla Rowland is easily one of the finest songwriters in Southern Gospel, so when someone says that a song is quite possibly her best effort in the past year, that’s not something to take lightly. Yet that is exactly the case with “Moving the Hand of God,” the third selection on the project. It sounds like it could have come off a Perrys project–and I mean that as a high compliment.

The fourth song on the project is the title song, “Once Upon a Cross” (by Marty Funderburk and Gina Boe). This song is good enough that I won’t try to spoil it for you by capturing it in words first. Might it suffice to say that I voted for this song for song of the year after only hearing it once? (If not, let me add that it is now #2 on my iTunes top 25 most-played list.)

The fifth song, “However I Go” (by Mark Mathes) features Dustin. The song might not leave a first impression of being a standout song. However, this song will probably become a highlight of the trio’s live program. I consider it one of the best songs onthe CD.

I Still Believe is written by Chris Allman, who also wrote “Won’t it Be Wonderful There.” It is a good song that features some interesting chord progressions in the chorus. (I must admit that I haven’t taken the time to figure out just what they are yet.)

Dianne Wilkinson’s contribution to the album, “Let Me Bring Your Children Home,” has some of the strongest lyrics she has written in recently years. Mark Trammell is featured on the song.

Joseph Habedank and Matthew Holt contribute “Weary at the Well.” It’s a good song, but not one that jumps out and grabs your attention to the extent of some of the others on the project.

“You Can’t Hold Back the Flood” is Rodney Griffin’s song on the project. As Roger Bennett said on Legacy Five’s Live in Music City live project, Rodney saves the best songs for Greater Vision, and there is more than a little truth to that. There are, of course, exceptions, like when he sent “He’d Still Been God” to the Freemans and the more recent “Don’t Let the Sandals Fool Ya” (done by Triumphant). Don’t misunderstand me, though; all kidding aside, this song is good. In fact, it may have been one of those songs that just barely didn’t make the cut onto a Greater Vision album.
The project closes with a song written by Steve Hurst, “Heaven Can’t Be Far Away.” It was originally recorded by Greater Vision in 1993, back when Mark Trammell was with that group.

* * *

As I mentioned toward the beginning of this review, many observers of the Mark Trammell Trio have said that they have the vocal ability to be one of the best groups out there, but they have been handicapped by having less-than-first-rate material.

Probably any group with Mark Trammell would be among the top twenty Southern Gospel groups, but the trio hasn’t yet had a breakout project that would place them solidly in the top five or ten. Is this the project?

I don’t know. The vocals are good enough, as are the soundtracks. The material is breakout quality. I suppose it all comes down to one thing. Is the time right? Are the fans ready to view this group as one of the top five groups out there…or even the best?

If the fans are ready, the material is here in this project, which could well go down as one of the strongest Southern Gospel projects to be released this decade.

(EDIT: Rating: 5 stars of 5)

Doug Harrison at the Averyfineline blog suggests that piracy in Southern Gospel is a moot point because so few SG albums are available for digital download. I decided to check iTunes and eMusic to see what kind of selection they had.

In yesterday’s post, I indicated I thought I’d have my list done by yesterday afternoon. Well, it took a little longer than I thought. Here’s the list–17 pages in a pdf format.

Look it over and take in the scope and breadth of what you can find at just these two sites.

Is this a good selection? Yes.

Could it be improved? Yes. There are glaring omissions, especially from the Cathedrals repertoire. (Also, the Collingsworth family is about the only major Crossroads/Sonlite/Horizon artist not on eMusic, and I’d love to see them added.)

But there is also a surprisingly vast scope of material, from the 1940s through the present day, covering everything from the Inspirations to Signature Sound, from the Golden Gate Quartet to the Jody Brown Indian Family (JBIF).

If the ultimate goal is getting everything that has ever been recorded online and available for download, I grant that we still have a ways to go. That’s a worthy goal, at least if you stick to the worthy projects by decently good artists.

But I think it is safe to say that the argument that one must resort to illegal downloads because there isn’t much else doesn’t hold water.

Doug Harrison at the Averyfineline blog suggests that piracy in Southern Gospel is a moot point because so few SG albums are available for digital download. Now someone can purchase a CD and duplicate it illegally, and in SG that is probably a bigger problem than the digital downloads.

But let’s just suppose that it is as he suggests, and that most piracy is committed with digital downloads. In that event, how widespread could the problem be? How many artists’ projects are available via digital download?

Has anyone made a list? If not, I think I know what I will be doing this evening…

I was delighted to see that my post on piracy in Southern Gospel a few days ago has prompted some serious discussion. First off is a thread I started in the Singing News forums, currently with 34 comments. (Feel free to join that discussion!)

Adam Edwards made the first industry-analysis post in his new blog a discussion of this topic. One particularly cogent thought was his response to the most common argument used by Christians to justify piracy:

They usually feel that they are doing some good deed by giving a copy of a recording to someone, but basically they are doing nothing more than telling people that they have no regard for the law and that Christians can break that law by stealing from SG artists so that someone doesn’t have to shell out fifteen bucks for a CD…….not a good witness, IMO.

There’s also a comment from Robbie Maxwell that is more than worth the thirty seconds it would take you to click here and read it. Once in a while an artist’s frustration shows. But after all, people are breaking the law and taking advantage of someone who is typically just making ends meet, so far be it from me to blame them.

Yesterday evening, David Bruce Murray also posted his thoughts on the topic. He goes into copyright laws more fully than I did–a flaw of my original article, I must admit, since I am familiar with much of what he posted. But he did such a good job filling that gap in the discussion that I don’t really need to feel bad about it; I can just refer you to his post, where it is done better than I would have done it.

This is the sort of discussion we need more often in Southern Gospel–a rational, levelheaded discussion of a serious problem.

I first saw the Colonial City Quartet last October (and reported on it here). I took the opportunity to hear them again yesterday morning.

They had a lineup change since the last time I saw them. Lead singer Wynn Baker left at the end of the year last year and was replaced by tenor Steve Feazel. Steve is a former member of the group, but left six years ago. When Wynn left, he was interested in taking the opportunity to return.

By the way, the part Steve sings is not a typo. Yes, the group replaced a lead singer with a tenor singer.

Just like in the October concert I attended, the group started out with “Alpha and Omega.” This time, though, I already knew they could sing harmony, so I was able to appreciate the song a little more than when I spent the first two verses wondering if they knew harmony.

Tenor David Campbell was featured on Glory Road. Having two tenors on this song brought out some unique vocal textures not heard in most renditions.
David and his father Tim Campbell (the group’s baritone) were featured on “That Little Baby.”

Tim then introduced the group before bringing Steve forward to sing “This Could be the Dawning of that Day.” Steve has a powerful first tenor voice, and again the combination of two tenors on this song brought out some interesting vocal textures.

Mike Dean was featured on “God Made a Way.” The group messed up the first few lines of the song, and re-started the song. But they handled the transition so smoothly (with a few jokes thrown in for good measure) that it could as well have been planned.

David and Steve were featured on “I Believe in a Hill Called Mount Calvary.” They used the same soundtrack used by other groups, most memorably (in my opinion) by Mark Trammell with the Mark Trammell Trio. In fact, the soundtrack has been used by enough different groups that I’m not really sure which group actually recorded it.

On the other hand, I was able to identify the source of most of the soundtracks; for example, the group used the Gold City soundtrack for “God Handled it All,” their next song.

Tim Campbell sang “Nothing that You & Me Together Can’t Handle.” This is the one song in the program that I haven’t heard by another group. It may be original to the group.

Steve, Dave, and Mike sang the old Cathedrals song “You Can Walk on the Water.” I don’t know who originally recorded the soundtrack they used, but it clearly wasn’t the circa-1983 Cathedrals track.

Each of the singers had some solo lines on “Glory Glory Clear the Road.”

Nobody was featured on “I Love the Lord,” the song the Talleys did several years ago. An entirely different texture is brought to the song when it’s done by a quartet.

Lead/tenor Steve Feazel was featured on “I Will Go On.” The group used the Gaither Vocal Band track, but changed things a little by having David sing a tenor part above Steve’s, thus making the melody part the lead part. Given that Mike Deane was still singing a low bass part, this caused an extraordinarily wide vocal range on the song.

Tim was featured on two other Gaither Vocal Band songs, “Journey to the Sky” and “Give it Away.”

David Campbell took Kim Hopper’s part on the closing song, their rendition of the Hopper’s “Jerusalem.” Tim Campbell introduced the song by saying that he knew the song talked about John the Revelator, but that when he sang the song, he couldn’t help but thinking of his brother John, who had recently passed away. That put the song in a new light, when they sang “John saw a city that could not stay hid”…

The group is finishing a recording featuring the new lineup. I’ll be posting a review of that project once it comes out.

To view this article in a reader-friendly PDF format, click here.

This month’s interview doesn’t focus on one artist. Instead, we take a look at a problem that many artists confront—illegal sharing of their music. I contacted several Southern Gospel artists for their views on the issue, and I’ll let them explain how illegal file sharing impacts them in their own words.

I asked the artists if they thought that audio piracy was a major problem in Southern Gospel. All the artists who responded agreed that it was a problem, but they also concurred that it is not as big a problem in this genre as it is in other genres.

Daniel Ball of the Ball Brothers said: “I’m really not sure how big the problem is, but I do know there is a problem there. We have had people at the product table tell some else standing at the product not to buy a cd because they will “burn” them one. (This has only happened a few times, and it seems the people had no idea it was wrong).”

Gerald Wolfe of Greater Vision said that at this point, the problem was not as much a financial problem as it was a spiritual problem: “I don’t think it is a ‘major’ problem yet, financially speaking, but any time Christians are involved in illegal activity, I think it is a ‘MAJOR’ problem, from a spiritual point of view.”

Legacy Five’s Scott Fowler agreed, saying: “I don’t know how prevalent audio piracy is in our business, but I assume it will only get more pervasive as our audience embraces current technology. With the advent of mp3 players, iTunes and computer technology, it is certainly easy to do. Audio and video sharing is a copywrite infringement and illegal. As such, people should not participate in it.”

(Continue Reading >>>)

Be watching for a major feature-length article tomorrow on audio/video piracy in Southern Gospel, featuring insight from Gerald Wolfe, Scott Fowler, and Daniel Ball!

Check out Daniel Ball’s tribute to Roger Bennett here. The neat part about the story is he did what he did when they were completely unknown, out of the goodness of his heart.

EDIT: I’d been unaware that the post was originally members-only. Daniel Ball has made it a public post now, and added pictures. If the link didn’t work for you this morning, try again!

Paid in full is a Mississippi-based trio that has seen significant regional success–and some national success, including an NQC mainstage appearance last year–throughout their fifteen-year run. Jeff Crews, the group’s tenor, has decided to leave after this weekend. Lance Moore and Bradley Littlejohn are now looking for a permanent tenor replacement. The group’s website is www.paidinfull.net.