SouthernGospelBlog.com

I’m going to be out of town the next few days. I’ll be in Atlanta, and I’m looking forward to meeting a couple regular readers of this blog for the first time.

Be watching for an interview with Matt Felts of the Monument Quartet come Thursday!

My host for this website has a way of tracking which country a request for the website to be loaded comes from. (Don’t worry, none of the information is personally identifiable.)

Here’s the hard data. It’s visits since the website started, though I might add that most of the data comes from this year (only three countries on the list–the last three–had visitors in 2006 only).

Japan 454
Canada 233
Brazil 233
Czech Republic 208
Germany 140
Netherlands 105
Australia 93
England 91
Sweden 59
Poland 36
France 34
Romania 32
Russian Federation 32
Italy 31
U.S. Military 27
Argentine Republic 26
Israel 24
South Africa 18
India 17
Belgium 15
Finland 14
Norway 13
Portugal 13
Chile 11
Mexico 10
China 9
Spain 7
Latvia 6
Malaysia 6
Ukraine 6
New Zealand 6
Australia 5
Hungary 5
Switzerland 4
Denmark 4
Thailand 4
Turkey 4
Taiwan 4
Trinidad and Tobago 4
Slovak Republic 4
Greece 3
Lithuania 3
Hong Kong 3
Bugaria 2
Belarus 2
Colombia 2
Korea 2
Morocco 2
Uruguay 2
Singapore 2
Bahamas 1
Dominican Republic 1
Iceland 1
Cayman Islands 1
Kazakstan 1
Moldova 1
Nicaragua 1
Niue 1
Philippines 1
Tuvalu 1
Virgin Islands 1
Vietnam 1
Zambia 1
Republic of Cote d’Ivoire 1
New Caledonia 1
Peru 1

That got me to thinking. If any of my non-US readers are willing to comment, I have a few questions I’d love to have the opportunity to ask:

• What is Southern Gospel like in your country?
• How do you keep up to date on Southern Gospel news?
• How do purchase Southern Gospel music?
• Have Southern Gospel groups ever come to your area?
• Is there any local Southern Gospel scene?
• Does your church sing Southern Gospel music?

I know there is some local/regional Southern Gospel scene in Canada, but I was particularly surprised to see that Japan led the list of foreign visits.

I couldn’t help but notice the rather eccentric wording in this mlive.com concert listing:

The slick Southern gospel slants of Ernie Haase and Signature Sound take the stage at 6 p.m. Saturday in Sunshine Community Church, 3300 East Beltline Ave. NE. The group, founded by Haase (a former member of the Cathedrals) features an up-tempo style, as noted in the title track of its latest release, “Get Away, Jordan.” The group performed in Van Andel Arena in May as part of the Gaither Homecoming concert. Reserved seat tickets are $20 and are available in advance at itickets.com, by calling (800) 965-9324, or at the door.

“The slick Southern gospel slants of Ernie Haase and Signature Sound”…sounds like a copywriter was bored and figured he could do whatever he wanted since nobody would actually read it anyhow!