The Mark Trammell Quartet just announced that Dustin Black has accepted the position of tenor. Black grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, and is the first Yankee the group has ever hired. When he started filling in, he was so new to the genre of music that he underwent a ninety-day trial period so that both Black and the group could be certain he was the right fit before the hire was finalized.

Mark Trammell comments: “We are SO excited about Dustin coming on board and we look forward to what is in store for both Dustin and MTQ. I am still convinced that God knows exactly what we need and when we need it. … He is a brand new face to gospel music and has already made many new friends across the country with his winning smile and warm personality. He has proven to be a true Christian Gentleman in every way. I was immediately impressed with this young man and his ability to just be one of the boys. Dustin had only been to one gospel concert prior to walking on our bus. It was a Gaither event in California a few years back while he was finishing his Masters degree in music at West Coast Baptist College.”

Worth Knowing

• A benefit concert for Tracy Stuffle has been announced. It will be held March 19th at Christ Church in Nashville, TN. Groups appearing will include the Oak Ridge Boys, Dailey & Vincent, Jason Crabb, Mark Lowry, Ernie Haase & Signature Sound, The Isaacs, The Booth Brothers, The Collingsworth Family, The Hoppers, Gold City, Karen Peck & New River, The Bowlings, and The Perrys. More information is here.
• LeFevre Quartet alumni Stacy Bragg and Stephen Sigmon have launched a new group, Sounds of Jericho. Other quartet members are Ken Thomas and Matt Tyler. Bragg and Sigmon were both with the version of the LeFevre Quartet that won Horizon Group of the Year in the 2006 Singing News Fan Awards.

Worth Watching

Free live-streaming concerts coming up this weekend:

• Saturday, March 2: Soul’d Out Quartet at Lake Gibson Church, 6 PM Eastern, streaming here
• Sunday, March 3: LeFevre Quartet at Lake Gibson Chuch, 6 PM Eastern, streaming here

From a recent concert with Mark Trammell Quartet and Greater Vision (hat tip, PB):

Worth Discussing

It’s open thread Saturday—you decide!

The Mark Trammell Quartet has just announced that tenor Eric Phillips is leaving the group. He will remain with the group through February 10th, before resuming his career in law enforcement.

In the press release, Mark Trammell commented: “Eric Phillips is one of the finest tenor singers in our industry today and he will be sorely missed. We wish nothing but the best for Eric, Lauren, Carli, and Blake. Our love and prayers go with them.”

The press release adds: “With this unexpected change the quartet will now begin the process of finding the right man to fill the tenor position. For those who are interested please send a demo CD of no more than 2 songs, a photo, and a brief resumé to: Mark Trammell Quartet, PO Box 588, Gadsden, AL 35907. Auditions will begin as early as next week.”

Worth Knowing

• Jodi Hosterman has left the Inspirations.
• Singing News has prepared their year-end annual radio chart of the most-played Southern Gospel songs of the year. Occupying the #1 spot on the chart, which will appear in the January 2013 Singing News issue, is the Mark Trammell Quartet’s “I Want to Know.” 
• HisSong manager Dennis Humphries is marrying Angel Ricketts this afternoon in Red Bay, Alabama.

Worth Watching

Worth Discussing

It’s open thread Saturday—you decide!

3:1 Reviews offer three highlights of an album and one area that could have been improved.

1: Song and group lineup: The lineup of groups appearing at this live tribute to legendary producer Lari Goss is basically a who’s who of Gospel Music: The Booth Brothers, Ernie Haase & Signature Sound, Babbie Mason, The Hoppers, The Mark Trammell Quartet, Greater Vision, Legacy Five, TaRanda Greene, The Martins, The Nelons, Karen Peck, Charlotte Ritchie, Reggie & Ladye Love Smith, Melissa Brady, Geron Davis, and the Christ Church Choir. 

Imagine each of these groups performing their greatest songs, with a…

2: Live orchestra: Lari Goss’s orchestrations are magnificent, but that magnificence just isn’t fully appreciated when they are delivered by three or four singers on stage with a soundtrack machine. The orchestra here wasn’t just any orchestra—it was the Nashville String Machine, the studio performers who are on so many of the original versions of these songs.

It doesn’t hurt that the house band includes Kevin Williams on guitar, Wesley Pritchard on bass guitar, Mike Hopper on drums, and, on many songs, the man himself, Lari Goss, on piano!

3: Video image quality: Thanks to the filming taking place at TBN’s studios, the cinematography—image quality, lighting, and resolution—is magnificent.  

:1: Nothing: This DVD doesn’t have a single flaw.

Here’s a case in point: Narrations. For those of you who enjoy them, they’re often pleasant, subdued moments. But many of you, on the other hand, skip the narrations. When was the last time you heard a narration get a standing ovation? That’s exactly what happens with Gerald Wolfe’s narration on “Statement of Faith.”

You can give this DVD to someone new to the genre, and comment “This is what Southern Gospel is all about.” If this doesn’t get someone hooked on Southern Gospel, there’s a fairly strong chance nothing will.

Most of the time, when a Southern Gospel group records an album of hymns and classic songs, it is a low-budget project with simple arrangements, basic soundtracks, predictable song selection, and no unifying theme. Lifetime is a shining exception to the rule.

Let’s start with the arrangements. Yes, Lari Goss brought his golden touch to the orchestrations. No, that doesn’t mean that the album is overloaded with slow anthems. In fact, four of the strongest tracks—”Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” “Way Past Ready,” “Wonderful Time Up There,” and “Meet Me Over on the Other Side”—are fast or at least on the fast side of mid-tempo.

The instrumental and vocal arrangements are fresh and creative. Mark Trammell could have been forgiven for reviving the unforgettable arrangement of “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” that he helped popularize fifteen years ago with Gold City. But he doesn’t; a prominent syncopated bass gives the track a distinctly different feel. Pat Barker’s bass solos are also remarkable; who would have thought of handing a bass singer songs that are traditionally a tenor solo (“Touring the City,” Archie Watkins’ signature song) and a soprano solo (“We Shall Behold Him,” Sandi Patty’s first signature song)?

Of course, though, Goss and Trammell are smart enough to avoid the trap of being different just to be different. Pat Barker’s feature on “Wonderful Time Up There” doesn’t stray far from previous versions. But it didn’t have to, because the track and vocals are executed with a precision and flair that makes this track the finest recorded version of the song to date. 

That’s not the only song that stays close to earlier versions but turns in the definitive version with a better execution. What Lari Goss did with the arrangement of “The King is Coming” is exactly what you would expect him to do with the song. But it’s a fastball that Mark Trammell, who has the solo, swings and hits into the stratosphere. 

As always with a full-budget Lari Goss project, there are a number of hymn bridges. It’s hard to pull off a hymn bridge that adds more than it detracts and distracts (see here), but several—”Footprints of Jesus” with “Where He Leads, I’ll Follow,” “Too Much to Gain to Lose” with “We Shall Behold Him,” and the whole “Garden City Tour Medley”—are quite effective. The only one that flows less smoothly than one might desire is the “I’m Free” pairing with “The King is Coming.”

New lead singer Nick Trammell joined part of the way through the recording process. He does not have any solo vocals, though his voice is a solid presence in the mix whenever the arrangement calls for the lead singer to anchor the quartet harmonies. Meanwhile, veterans Eric Phillips (tenor), Mark Trammell (baritone), and Pat Barker (bass) each turn in some of their career-strongest vocal performances.

In the booklet, Mark Trammell offers extensive autobiographical liner notes, tying each song on the album into his life story. Priceless details make this collection far greater than the sum of its parts. Just to name two: “Footprints of Jesus” was a song he sang with his brothers at the first revival he ever remembers attending, and “We’ll Tour the Golden City” was one of the songs he played with when learning to play bass guitar—and co-producer Lari Goss’s first orchestration!

Lifetime demonstrates the Mark Trammell Quartet’s diversity. Two of their previous three albums—Always Have a Song (2008, reviewed here) and Treasures (2011, reviewed here)—received five-star ratings on this site. The former was an album of new songs; the latter, a classics project with simpler, piano/bass/percussion-based arrangements. This album is of an entirely different variety—a lushly orchestrated album stylistically reminiscent of Greater Vision’s landmark Hymns of the Ages album, but with the added richness that a bass vocal adds to male harmonies. It turns out that the Mark Trammell Quartet is equally adept in this setting. 

Lifetime is a five-star album, and joins The Talleys’ Love Won as one of the two strongest albums released this year.

Worth Knowing

• Following the Melody Boys Quartet’s retirement at the end of the year, two to-be alumni, lead singer Jason Tapley and baritone singer Chris Walton, will be launching Next Chapter Quartet. [EDIT, 2/21/13. Broken link removed.] They will release two recordings in or around next January, a mainline project titled God’s Not Finished and a project called Tribute to Gerald Williams and the Melody Boys.
• Pianist Mike Hammontree has returned to the Blackwood Brothers, after recovery from a quadruple-bypass heart surgery.

Worth Reading

• Wayne Haun and Joel Lindsay are launching a songwriting blog, http://www.youwritesongs.com/.
• Top ten reasons to share musical opinions humbly.
• Not musical, but relevant: Christian author Randy Alcorn urges Christians to never give up hope that family members will come to know the Lord by sharing the story of how his own father finally surrendered to the Gospel at age 84.

Worth Watching

• The Dills have a video taken underneath their bus, amidst an air valve repair.
• Aaron Swain has videos of the new Blackwood Brothers lineup live in concert.
• The Mark Trammell Quartet had a homecoming celebrating their 10th Anniversary on the road last weekend. Here’s a video of Mark, tenor Eric Phillips, and Eric’s daughter Carli; Carli is singing “I Love to Tell the Story.”
• SGConcerts’ Diana Brantley posted a concert review with videos of a recent concert featuring the Old Paths, Gold City, and a new group called Resurrection. [EDIT, 3/16/13: Broken link removed.] Resurrection is a trio consisting of Inspirations alumni Matt Dibler, Melton Campbell, and Mike Clark. (Clark filled in for Archie Watkins.) Here’s one of the Resurrection videos:

Worth Discussing

It’s open thread Saturday—you decide!

Mark Trammell posted on Facebook that his mother, Elizabeth Trammell, passed away at 1 AM Central Time:\

At 1 AM central time… Mom quietly and peacefully walked thru the gates of pearl….No more broken hip, no cancer, no arthritis, no heart problems. She made it…..because Jesus said that she would!!!!!!! Yay MOM!!

Please keep the Trammell family in your prayers.

UPDATE: Singing News posted funeral arrangements: “Huson Funeral Home in Sherwood, Arkansas, will be handling the arrangements for Ms. Trammell. The visitation will be Sunday, August 5, 2012 from 12 – 2 p.m., with the celebration of life service at 2 p.m.”

The Mark Trammell Quartet has announced that Dustin Sweatman is leaving to accept the Renaissance Program Director of Choirs position at Bethel University in McKenzie, Tennessee. He will remain with the group through the National Quartet Convention and start with Bethel the following week.

He will be replaced by Mark Trammell’s son Nick Trammell. Nick has performed with the Perrys and, most recently, with his wife Jessica’s family, The Browns.

The announcement states:

Nick shares that he is excited to fulfill a dream of standing beside his father in Christian work. Likewise, Mark is pleased to have his son joining him as he carries on a quartet tradition that Mark first loved as a child growing up in Arkansas.

“This is definitely a time of growth for our ministry and the doors of opportunity have been thrown open,” says Mark. “I had to know that Nick’s desire to follow in my footsteps was not only Nick’s desire but more importantly God’s plan for everyone involved.

The announcement closes by noting that the group will debut a new recording at the National Quartet Convention—and a new full-time pianist afterwards.

Shelly Brown of The Browns posted the following announcement on Facebook:

The Browns are entering a new season of their musical journey after welcoming baby Tessa Nichole into the family June 21st. With the birth of their new daughter, group members Nick and Jessica Trammell, will be making some changes. Jessica will be coming off the road to care for Tessa at home and Nick will be joining his father’s group, The Mark Trammell Quartet. “It is our greatest joy to see Nick and Jessica choosing to raise Tessa in a godly home filled with Southern Gospel song!” The Browns, Michaela, Adam, Andrew, Keith, and Shelly, continue their 12 year tradition of Sharing Music from the Heart!!

More information will be shared when it is known.

UPDATE: Dustin Sweatman is coming off of the road, and Nick will assume the lead singer position.