Southern Gospel Concerts

On August 2, I had the chance to catch a set by the Dan Keeton Quartet at an outdoor sing north of Mansfield, Ohio. It was a fairly short set; they only sang eight songs.

• Saved to the Uttermost (featuring Dan and Nancy Keeton)
• Heroes of the Faith (featuring Dan)
• Movin’ Up to Gloryland
• Oh, What a Savior (featuring Dan)
• I’m Not Perfect, Just Forgiven (featuring Dan) - a Hemphills song
• I Must Be Getting Closer to the Cross (featuring Nancy) - a Hinsons song
• Saints Will Rise
• I Feel So Good About It (featuring Dan) - a Downings song

Perhaps partly because of the lineup change, the group stayed in mostly familiar territory musically, both as to who was featured (most of the songs featured Dan) and as to song selection (most of the songs were familiar classics, though the group did one original song and two relatively forgotten songs from the Hinsons and Downings repertoire.

“Saints Will Rise” was the high point of the set; the group ended with a sky-high three chords and a cloud of dust ending and got a response that would have made an encore fitting if they had had a track ready.

The group is in transition, so this brief set was probably not that great of a snapshot on which to rate them. But it did show their potential.