Southern Gospel Concerts

As a fairly new Southern Gospel music fan, I had not attended any of the Mull Singing Convention concerts.  This one on Saturday, June 28, was in the theater of the New Hope Church (the former Lee Greenwood Theater) in Sevierville, TN. It was a large, comfortable venue, but what is it with smoke machines?  Can someone explain to me what the value of fog on the stage is?  Anyway, the featured artists were The Roarks, The Booth Brothers, Ivan Parker, and The Hoppers.

First up were The Roarks.  I had seen this group once before in a multi-artist concert.  They are a family trio of mother, father, and son with the strongest member of the group (in my opinion) being the son, Shane.  I think that most people would recognize their single “There Is a God.” They have a country sound and they even performed a song named something like “I Want Jesus as My Number One Fan” that Shane wrote about how he’d rather sing gospel than country music.  This group was enjoyable, but I’ll admit to being more anxious to hear the other artists that were on the program.

The Booth Brothers were up next and were my favorites of the evening.  They started out with a Mosie Lister song, Where No One Stands Alone.  Very few groups can match the smoothness of their sound and harmony.  They sang many of their most popular songs - Look for Me at Jesus’ Feet, Hallelujah Meeting, I Would (from Ronnie’s solo CD), The Secret Place (from Michael’s solo CD), Tears Are a Language, He Saw It All, The Eyes of Jesus, I’ve Been Changed, The Night Before Easter, Castles in the Sand, and Still Feelin’ Fine.  The Booth Brothers do an excellent job of featuring each of their members on very special songs that let the audience fully appreciate their vocal abilities while very strongly getting the message across.  Michael even sang the chorus of The Secret Place a-capella very slowly after the track ended to present the message just one more time.

Next on stage was Ivan Parker.  My favorites of the night were The Grace that I’m Under, I Choose, and the old Gold City standards When I Get Carried Away and The Midnight Cry.  He also performed God Bless he USA and I wondered how it felt to him to be singing that particular song in the former Lee Greenwood Theater!  He also performed his current single from his new “Inseparable” CD, You Can’t Take My Crown, which hasn’t quite grown on me yet!   On the second part of the program, Ivan also brought out Kim and Dean to join him on What a Lovely Name.

The Hoppers did a great job with songs like Yaweh, Marriage of the Lamb, Grace Will Always Be Greater Than Sin, I’m Just Waiting for My Ride (with the video —- not my personal favorite!), I’ve Come Too Far to Look Back, Jerusalem and Shouting Time.  On the second part of the program, I really enjoyed their performance of God Already Knew with Karlye being featured on one verse and Michael joining in on the vocals as well.  And then, little Lexie - not to be outdone by big sis - ran across the stage!  I’m a sucker for kids doing cute things, so I really enjoyed it!

It was a great evening of Southern Gospel music and I’ll plan to attend another Mull concert as soon as I can!

We journeyed over to Tallassee, Alabama on Friday, June 27 for Triumphant’s yearly visit to the Westside Baptist Church. This church always makes Triumphant’s stay such an enjoyable one by treating them to great food, boating, fishing, basketball, and more great food!! And then Triumphant provides a wonderful concert for them! It was such a joy for me and my travelling buddy to see the friends we met last year and to see how the kids have grown. It’s a lovely church and there’s not a bad seat in the house.

The music we heard that night was outstanding. It was announced that Clayton Inman has been singing with Southern Gospel groups full-time for 25 years and he was certainly in great form that night. His rendition of Welcome to Heaven brought the first standing ovation of the night and The Old White Flag brought the second! They performed several of the songs from their newest CD, “Intermission” - The Cloud He’s coming Back On (it’s even better in person than on the CD, of course!), Welcome to Heaven, It’s a Wonderful Day, and For God So Loved. Jeff Stice performed a medley of hymns including Thinking of a Mansion, Amazing Grace, When They Ring Those Golden Bells, and How Great Thou Art. He also played his medley of When We All Get to Heaven that includes the Do-Re-Mi song from the Sound of Music (my personal favorite!). And to the crowd’s delight, he also played the Hallelujah Chorus. Here’s a video I managed to get of Jeff’s hands during part of the Hallelujah Chorus.

I certainly hope to go back to Tallassee for the next annual concert!

I had a great time at a concert in Gainesville, Georgia on June 21.  The concert featured Mike Upright, Gold City and Triumphant Quartet.

Mike Upright was first on the program. I hadn’t heard him live before although I had heard his songs on the radio. He’s a tall guy with a big voice! He’s got a real country sound - but not twangy - both in his voice and the instrumentation on his tracks. He sang a total of about 14 songs in the two portions of the program.  My favorites were “He Is Risen” - he said it was an old Wendy Bagwell song - and “Love Letter in the Sand” - about the adulterous woman that the crowd wanted to stone and Jesus was writing in the sand as he spoke to them and the woman.

Gold City was next and I was delighted that they did some of the songs from the new album “Moment of Truth” including “I Cast My Bread Upon the Water”, “Turn Your Back” (Aaron McCune did a great job on this but I still prefer the Triumphant version!!), “What Children Believe” (I really liked this one!), and “When Jesus Saves” - a very loud, in-your-face, brassy, non-traditional song.  I’ve gotta say here that all of the music at this whole concert was VERY loud - of course, I was sitting right up under the speakers on the 5th row! They also did several of my very favorites - “When I Get Carried Away”, “Teach Me Lord to Wait”, “Midnight Cry”, “In My Robe of White”, and “I’m Not Giving Up.” All of the guys sounded great and I really enjoyed hearing Bruce Taliaferro for the first time and meeting their bus driver, Ed. Josh Simpson did a very nice job on his piano solo, How Majestic Is Your Name.

Then came Triumphant!! I see these guys a lot and many times their program is basically the same as the previous concert, but I never get tired of hearing them! It’s hard to list favorites, but I really enjoy Clayton’s rendition of Welcome to Heaven. WOW!! What a great song and a great singer! He gives it everything he’s got every time he sings it. They also did “The Cloud He’s Coming Back On” from the new Intermission album, and I like the TQ version better than the Kingsmen version! Great song! David and Jeff had the crowd on their feet with “Goodbye, World, Goodbye.” They are fabulous together on the harmonica and keyboard. Speaking of Jeff, he did two solo selections and was really fantastic. At the last couple of concerts where David has sung ‘For God So Loved,” they have followed that with “He Loves Me” and I just think that combination is SOOO effective. Eric asked the audience to join them on He Loves Me and I heard quite a number of people singing along.

This was a great concert but it was very long and only the true, die-hard fans stayed until the end.  I think you can guess what kind of fan I am!