Joshua Pope to fill in for Kingdom Heirs this summer After my recent post about Lucas Case playing piano for the Kingdom Heirs, a reader of this blog checked with Steve French and found out that Case was filling in, and that 14-year-old piano prodigy Joshua Pope will be filling in for the summer while the Kingdom Heirs seek a permanent pianist. If Roy Webb...

The Southerngospelblog.com Traditional/Progressive Rating System Last week, I floated the possibility of augmenting my reviews by adding a rating of how traditional the project is. The purpose of a review is to help the reader know if he or she wants to buy the project, and I think this feature will help. Reader Diana found reading another blog’s review of a Valor...

Kingdom Heirs pianist update It’s being reported on the Singing News forums that Lucas Case (until recently of the Monument Quartet) is currently playing piano for the Kingdom Heirs. No official press release has gone out yet, but I post that link for whatever it’s worth. EDIT: For whatever it was worth, the thought occurred...

A Chicken Little Day? I feel like running around and shouting, “The Sky is falling! The Sky is falling!” All right, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But to have both the Florida Boys and Three Bridges disband on the same day, plus more information coming out on JBIF’s disbanding (can’t find the link,...

Florida Boys Retiring in July It is official; the Florida Boys will retire in July. Their booking agency, Harper, posted a headline on their website (but no article yet, or at any rate a bad link if there is an article.) Before Harper posted, I emailed Les Beasley asking if it was official for the record. He replied: Much to our sorrow...

Florida Boys retiring? So says Averyfineline. I’ll post more when I know more. If this happens, my biggest regret would be that I never got to hear Glen Allred sing baritone live and in person. EDIT: That didn’t take long. It’s up on the Harper Agency website now, though they have a dud link which they’ll...

Signature Sound not hiring Replacement Pianist – UPDATE According to Ernie Haase, Signature Sound will not be hiring a full-time replacement for Roy Webb. In an email today, he explained: “I like to build my future on the four faces of the singers like the Oak ridge boys and the GVB.” For the time being, he’s hired Gordon Mote to play piano for...

What if the Kingdom Heirs hit the road? Right now, the Kingdom Heirs have one of the nicest deals possible in Southern Gospel: A steady job (at Dollywood) where the fans come to you, you get a predictable paycheck, and you can go home to your family almost every evening. Other groups have had theater gigs for a while; Triumphant does this...

Danny Funderburk Scheduled for surgery following heart attack I’m still working away on some of the CD review ideas I posted a few days ago. In case I don’t get anything done by the end of the day today, I wanted to be sure to get at least something up today, so here’s a link to another blogger’s post: Legendary Cathedrals tenor Danny Funderburk...

Buddy Liles featured in Catoosa County News Check out this article featuring an interview with Southern Gospel soloist (and Florida Boys bass) in the Catoosa County News. He talks about himself– One of the individuals that helped carry the Florida Boys sound for more than 20 years is the legendary bass and baritone singer Buddy Liles. A member...