I started listening last night but gave up after about twenty minutes, since it seemed groups couldn’t go two full songs without a promo or ad break. The broadcast will be starting at 10 AM today, and I plan to give it another try then.

Update: I must have just hit a particularly rough spot last night. Things are going better today. (The feed hasn’t gone down today, either, another plus.)

Average Song Rating: 3.8 stars (of 5)

Members: Mike Franklin (tenor), Ryan Seaton (lead), Jeremy Raines (baritone), Gerald Williams (bass).

Song List: Forty Days and Forty Nights; Oh But It’s Wonderful Being a Child of the King; He Bought My Soul at Calvary; My Journey to the Sky; A Wonderful Love; Lead Me in the Everlasting Way; I Call it Home; I’ve Got that Feeling; Celebration; Still One Nation Under God.

Available From: Artist.

* * *

Ernie Haase & Signature Sound has maintained the same vocal lineup for six years. The last change to their lineup was in 2003,when Ryan Seaton left the Melody Boys to join them. Seaton was with the Melody Boys Quartet for less than a year before getting the opportunity to sing with his hero, Ernie Haase, but during that time he did appear on one Melody Boys Quartet CD, A Wonderful Love.

A Wonderful Love features the classic arrangements and tight harmonies that distinguish the Melody Boys sound. Ryan Seaton fit the sound well, both in the quartet harmony parts of the project and on his solos, “Lead Me in the Everlasting Way” and “I Just Call it Home.” The latter song is the same one the Prophets cut on their re-debut project last year; even though the song’s writer, Paul Jackson, sang it on the Prophets project, Seaton’s rendition here seems to fit the song better. The simple piano-led arrangement fits the lyric well.

Of course, Seaton’s features weren’t the only highlights of the project. (Before any MBQs fans complain about the first two paragraphs being devoted to a lead singer who stayed less than a year, let me just mention that knowing that one of Southern Gospel’s most popular lead singers  had been with the MBQ was one of the first things that interested me in the group.)

Group manager and bass singer Gerald Williams delivers a particularly pleasant rendition of “He Bought My Soul at Calvary.” Other project highlights include “Celebration” and an original Dianne Wilkinson song, “Oh But It’s Wonderful, Being a Child of the King.”

Fans of classic Southern Gospel—and fans of Ryan Seaton’s later work—will find much to like in this pleasant collection of new and old songs with the Melody Boys’ classic tight harmony male quartet sound.

]]> http://www.southerngospelblog.com/archives/2744/feed 1 http://www.southerngospelblog.com/archives/2906 http://www.southerngospelblog.com/archives/2906#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:49:16 +0000 Daniel J. Mount http://www.southerngospelblog.com/?p=2906 I’m slow to adopt new technologies. I didn’t even get a CD player until the late 90s, and I wasn’t online until 2003 or so.

Honestly, I’ve yet to really warm to the idea behind Twitter: Expressing what’s on your mind in 140 characters or less. (That won’t surprise this site’s regular readers. A 140-word-post is a short post for me.)

Anyhow, I do have a Twitter account to follow a couple of artists’ tweets. I typically log in once every few weeks. Anyhow, one recent post from last night caught my eye. Michael English said:

I must say Wes Hampton is my fav. Singer now.

That’s interesting both as illustrative of what you might notice on Twitter that you wouldn’t see elsewhere, and (of course) it’s a fascinating and thought-provoking statement on its own.

(Wes Hampton’s reply: “I NEVER would have DREAMED M.E. would say that about me.We’ve talked whole way home about how much we love u & admire your vox!“)

Wood had performed with Georgia’s Daybreak Quartet for four years. Joel and his wife Melissa have four boys—Tyler (10), Brayden (7), Jaxon (3), and Cameron (9 months). He just had his 29th birthday.

Joel had been with Daybreak since May 2005 and owned a landscaping business, Mac’s Landscaping in Columbus, Georgia. Before joining Daybreak Quartet, he sang with several other groups, most recently the Damascus Road Quartet. He also occasionally sings with Men of Grace, a group based in his home church, Grace Baptist Church of Columbus, Georgia. His brother David is also in that group.

He enjoys golf, and according to Daybreak’s biographies page, at one point made plans to attempt to go professional.

The quartet has posted a number of complete songs on their ShoutLife page. Wood has a solo on “Nothing But the Blood” and a brief lead on “The Cross Speaks Louder.” Via Daybreak’s Facebook page, a number of other songs are available for listening here. Wood has a solo on “Sing Oh Sing,” “God Bless the USA,” and “My Country Tis of Thee.” Wood’s voice quality reminds me of Liberty Quartet’s Keith Waggoner (and, though Waggoner isn’t a household name yet, I say that as a compliment to Wood).

More thoughts tomorrow.

We started working on this project in the Fall of last year, and because of our schedules, it has been very difficult to find the time to get into the studio to finish it.  Now, the final mixes are being completed, and the finished project will soon be on its way to the manufacturer.  This new CD, called “Jubilee!” is a collection of songs you’ve never heard these groups sing before, and to top it off, the three groups sing as a choir on two of the songs!  As an added bonus, we mixed it up a little by changing out the vocal parts on several of the songs.  So… don’t be surprised if you hear somebody from Greater Vision singing with the Booth Brothers, or one of the Legacy Five guys singing with Greater Vision, or the Booth Brothers with a bass singer.  You’re gonna LOVE this CD!

The official “Premier Concert” for this CD will be Friday August 28 in Iola, Kansas at the Bolus Fine Arts Center.  If you would like to be in the audience for this special concert, call 620-365-7496, or click here for more information.

So I thought I’d ask. Is it…

• news
• commentary
• a certain perspective
• consistency of posts

…or something entirely different?

(The download has ended.)