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Triumphant Quartet issued a press release with their take on their recent concert in Carnegie Hall:

PRESS RELEASE
American Gospel Music is a new emerging genre within the fabric of American musical culture.  American Gospel Music brings together the very best of traditional southern gospel, black gospel, and contemporary gospel.

The selections and groups chosen for the performance at Carnegie Hall, New York City, New York on Friday evening November 23, 2007 are reflective of the total scope of American Gospel Music.  Babbie Mason gave voice to sounds within the Black-gospel heritage.  The contemporary voice was heard from The Imperials.

Traditional Southern Gospel was voiced by the TRIUMPHANT QUARTET representing the traditional sounds  in such selections as “When Morning Sweeps the Eastern Sky” “Rock Bottom” “Delivered Again” and “The Great I Am Still Is” “Terrible Time/Wonderful Time” The Quartet is comprised of five gentlemen who are very experienced in singing gospel harmony.  Eric Bennett, Jeff Stice, David Sutton, Clayton Inman, & Scott Inman

Jeff Stice brought the audience to their feet, playing his own arrangement of the traditional song “Joshua Fit the Battle” along with The American Festival Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the dynamic world renowned maestro Eric Dale Knapp.

Mr. Knapp will lead the Olympic Festival Orchestra and Chorus in a concert July 2008 in Beijing Olympics

Jeff Stice accompanied Babbie Mason and the 200 voice choir on many of the selections.

Triumphant joined with Babbie Mason & the Imperials on the opening number “Come on Into the House” and the Finale “Jerusalem”

Triumphant Quartet was much honored to be a part of this magnificent concert at Carnegie Hall.  We wish to thank Christian Music Presenters Nashville, TN for all the labor that went into this past week, and in making the concert at Carnegie Hall a great success.

A picture can be found here.

According to a friend of the family, Southern Gospel legend Jim Hamill passed away at 5:30 this morning. He had been in steadily declining health for months.

Hamill’s debut in Southern Gospel was with the Weatherfords in the 1950s. After a stint with the Blue Ridge Quartet, he also performed for some time with the Oak Ridge Quartet and the Rebels before 1971, when he landed the job that would make him a legend, singing lead for the Kingsmen Quartet. During his time with the Kingsmen Quartet, he helped introduce and define for the fans many of the performers that have shaped Southern Gospel in the years since–among them Anthony Burger, Ray Dean Reese, Ernie Phillips, Mark Trammell, and Arthur Rice.
With the possible exception of George Younce, no other master of ceremonies has had as much impact on today’s Southern Gospel performers, who seek to capture just a fraction of his stage presence. Hamill was one of that tiny handful of singers who defined exactly what it means to be a Southern Gospel performer.

Every now and then, the topic of groups recording songs introduced by other groups comes up. When a major group records a song that another major group recorded and singled, the first group’s fans often take offense and complain on message boards that the second group’s rendition simply doesn’t measure up.

Fewer object when a major group recycles a song that never got singled from another group’s project or when a good Christmas song starts making the rounds. The main objections seem to take place when a second group starts doing a song that the first group and its fans think was a good song.

This isn’t the way it used to be. Look at Southern Gospel’s roots; back in the 20s and 30s, when the songbook companies were the driving force behind keeping Southern Gospel quartets on the road, that company’s quartets would sing any song from the songbook, and nobody seemed to mind.

In the 1940s and 1950s, when the genre became more artist-driven, performers would think nothing of it if twenty other groups started singing a good song they’d introduced. It honestly didn’t take all that long for songs like “How Long Has it Been,” “Oh What a Savior,” “Happy Rhythm,” “His Hand in Mine,” or “The Old Country Church” to become classics. The songs were good, but it wasn’t just that the songs were good. If a good song gets buried and forgotten, nobody knows it was good. They became classics because they were good–and because they were widely performed.

This attitude continued well into the 1970s. It wasn’t until the 1980s, when Southern Gospel became a more radio-driven genre, that the practice began to be frowned upon. Today, things have changed so much that personnel from major groups are sometimes bothered or offended when another major group takes a song they had recorded and starts performing it.

But the idea that good songs are limited to one group comes out of CCM or secular music, not out of Southern Gospel’s heritage.

I subscribe to the newsletters of several dozen Southern Gospel groups, since you never know when one of them will have a particularly interesting story. Last week’s Thanksgiving update from the Browns–written by daughter Michaela (who was a Singing News top 5 Horizon Individual nominee this year)–had this news item:

This past week we had some time off and we all went and spent some time with friends… I went to Washington D.C. where a friend of mine is nanny and the day before I came home I thought we should do something adventures.. I came up with the bright idea of going Skydiving!!! I’ve always wanted to do it and it was all I ever thought it would be and more!! You should have seen mom and dads faces when I got home and popped in the DVD!!! Here is the link if you want to watch me jump out of an airplane!

I didn’t really have any other news to post today; most of the newsmakers in our genre took an extended weekend off from making news, and this is the most interesting thing I came across over the weekend. (NOTE: Do not watch the clip if you have a fear of heights!)

While I personally like the title (”Southern Gospel’s Positive Blog”) I posted yesterday, at least one blogger took personal offense, so I decided that I ought to take it down. Since I still wanted a subtitle that was more descriptive of this blog in particular–not one that could apply to any blog out there–I ended up choosing to go with one that is a hybrid of the old (which some like) and the new (which others like): “Beyond the Headlines: Positive Daily Commentary on Southern Gospel.”

After reading and taking into consideration all the comments in last week’s open thread, I changed the subtitle of this blog for the first time since it was launched. For the last 14 months, it’s been “Beyond the Headlines: Southern Gospel News and Analysis.”

I liked the idea of naming the blog “Southern Gospel’s Positive Blog,” but didn’t want to go ahead with it unless I saw that the other leading bloggers were okay with it. Once David Bruce Murray posted his comment that indicated he didn’t really mind the idea, I decided to go ahead with it.

Just to be perfectly clear, I don’t mean this as a criticism of other blogs. They choose to take a critical/analytical approach to commenting on this genre. I choose to approach this genre as a fan first and a commentator afterwards. I enjoy this music, and I hope some of that gets reflected in my posts. Other blogs do what they do, and do it well; while this subtitle does reflect how this blog is different, it’s not to say that it is better, just that it is aiming for a different target.

Since my posting over the Thanksgiving holiday will be light, I thought I’d start this open thread to carry discussion forward until next Monday.

Here is a question to get things started. The current subtitle for this blog is “Beyond the Headlines: Southern Gospel News and Analysis.”  For most of a year, I’ve been wondering if that was the best possible subtitle. Any suggestions?

As always, since this is an open thread, feel free to comment on other topics as well!

Fairly frequently, some fan of Southern Gospel starts a blog. All too often, he or she will make a few posts and decide that the level of effort required to write posts is more than they want to put forth.

Two blogs–Coomer Cove and Burke’s Brainwork–started in mid-September. Two months later, both bloggers are still keeping their blogs updated nearly every day. I think a little bit of recognition is due both of these bloggers. They are off to a great start, and if they can maintain the pace they’ve set for themselves, either or both could join the ranks of the Southern Gospel blogs most worth reading and watching on a daily basis.

It has been a whirlwind, roller-coaster two weeks in Southern Gospel. In these two weeks, the following stories have come out:

• Christian Davis (bass) leaves Mercy’s Mark Quartet
• Dallas Rogers (tenor) leaves the Dixie Echoes
• Scott McDowell (pianist) leaves Brian Free & Assurance
• Nick Succi (pianist) leaves the Kingsmen
• Grant Barker (bass guitarist) leaves the Kingsmen
• The Old Time Gospel Hour Quartet disbands
• Mercy’s Mark disbands, at least for the rest of the year

Take a deep breath. Let’s hope this is it, for now!

Of course, Singing News also just announced a major story–that they are moving their Fan Awards to Saturday evening at the National Quartet Convention. I think it will have a beneficial effect on Saturday turnout, but it could also heavily impact Thursday and Friday attendance, as people who came in large part to catch the Fan Awards and then happen to stay until the end could feasibly end up coming just Saturday, or just Friday and Saturday.