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after reviewing submissions.
How badly is Michael
Jackson’s new album, “The Essential Michael Jackson,” doing? Well, according to
InTheNews.co.uk, it’s such a dud that it’s getting whipped by “the
likes of the Dukes of Hazzard soundtrack and obscure singer Guy Penrod.” And
Ireland Online and the official Chinese newsagency
Xinhua quote a
spokeswoman for Nielsen Soundscan: “Michael Jackson is quite a way down there.
Carly Simon sold 50,000 albums more than him. Christian singer Guy Penrod even
sold 11,000 copies of his new record.”
I’ve spent three days listening
to
enLIGHTen, the online Southern Gospel station of satellite broadcaster
XM Radio. It’s great music, and I certainly recommend the three-day free
trial. But would you pay for it?
XM Radio provides more than 130
digital stations to its satellite radio subscribers. About 70 of these are
available online. In addition, several stations are exclusive to the internet,
apparently because the satellite lacks further capacity. One of these, available
online only, for the time being, is enLIGHTen.
I never got a reply to my email
to enLIGHTen [but see the UPDATE, below], so most of what I know about it is from a November posting at
Musicscribe. I don’t know when – or if – the station will get onto the
satellite. Nor do I know when – or if – Gary Wilson’s
Southern Gospel USA Countdown Show will get onto the XM satellite, as
has also been mooted.
But back to the three-day
trial. It started well, with Janet Paschal, followed by the McRaes, Dove
Brothers, Signature Sound Quartet, LordSong, Cathedrals, Palmetto State Quartet,
Florida Boys, and so on. I heard all the hits, including the newly-released “The
Shepherd’s Call” from the Crabb Family and “Nail It to the Cross” from the
Whisnants. It’s commercial free, though I heard several station promotions from
personalities including Gloria Gaither, and I thought it was Sonya Isaacs who
sang “This is enLIGHTen.”
It was all great. But would you
pay $7.99 a month for it? Of course you get 70-plus other stations, not just
Southern Gospel, and if you can find a few other stations that you know you’ll
listen to regularly, then it might all be worth it.
But I find
The Gospel Station – my current online station of preference – to offer the
same as enLIGHTen, and it’s free. Sure, it has commercials for the most amazing
products: two-foot high bags of
Southern Style Pork Rinds,
PlakMan cardiovascular supplement - “cheaper than by-pass surgery” - and a
whole ark full of weight loss, diet and sports enhancement preparations. For me
down here in Australia
– craving for some authentic Southern atmosphere - these just add to the
experience.
Marlin Taylor,
program director of enLIGHTen, was on leave when I emailed him. He has now
replied with lots of interesting detail, as follows:
Audience
re-action has been totally positive … with the major question being “when will
it be added to the satellite service?” As for that question, I do not have a
firm answer – although the prospect is looking much brighter than it did a
couple of months ago….
The Gloria
Gaither and artist voices you hear on the channel were all recorded during a
Homecoming event last October here in suburban Washington, D. C., where we are
headquartered. While we are open, no others have sent us any. We’ll be attending
the National Quartet Convention in September with plans to record any and all
who are interested in contributing to our on-air format material. By the way,
that Isaacs jingle was created by them on the spot.
As we are not
burdened by commercials and other “distractions,” we can get a lot of music into
an hour.
We have
“Powers,” which are the Top 50 of the current "Singing News" chart. Things
below the 50, along with other new tracks we feel have potential go into New
Releases. I follow a couple of the other charts for guidance.
Then tracks
going down from the Top 50 go into Re-Currents for 2 – 3 months. Hits from the
previous five years or so show up in “Past Hits.” At the moment, everything
older goes into the “Historic” category. As we’re able to locate more old
recordings, especially from the 1990’s, I’ll likely break down those two latter
categories into four or five groupings.
Each of these
categories, along with an “instrumental” group, shows up one or more times in
every hour. We also have a growing category simply called “Library,” in which we
dump good album tracks that have not reached any kind of hit status, whether or
not the group/artist has had hits. These fill three to four
slots in most every hour, which gives our sound a certain freshness – which is a
comment received from a number of listeners and appears to be greatly
appreciated.
Not much will
change prior to going on satellite, nor am I sure what we’ll add in the near
term….
We’ve received
great support from many in the Southern Gospel music community, which I’m sure
will grow when we join the satellite lineup – as we’ll then be a true national
force here in America.
Thanks so much
for your interest. This is likely more than you wanted or needed to know.
However, I do get wound up and am passionate about this format. I’m waiting for
final confirmation on broadcasting the SGMA Hall of Fame Awards ceremony on a
week or two delayed basis, along with another major S. G. special we hope to
announce shortly.
I launched Southern Gospel
Beat early in July. I told few people, and didn’t seek out publicity, apart from
placing advertising on top of each page of my other website,
Martin Roth Christian Commentary (which hasn’t been updated for more than 18
months).
I’m busy right now with
other work (real work!), so I thought I’d slowly and gradually build up the
site, then around September I’d start trying to publicise it.
But I’ve been sprung.
I happened to be in
correspondence with Barbara of
Tidbits and Treasures, and told her what I was doing. She placed a link on
her site.
Then, a couple of days ago,
Saint at
Dogfight at Bankstown found the site and welcomed me back.
1.
I love Southern Gospel music, but don’t really know such a lot about it, and
don’t have strong opinions on it. I see my site more as a kind of regular update
of happenings in the business, from a Down Under perspective, rather than as any
kind of commentary. I was originally going to call the site Southern Gospel
Update, but thought that sounded bland, so decided on Southern Gospel Central,
but thought that sounded arrogant, so at the last minute went for Southern
Gospel Beat. (But I’d already uploaded stuff to the site with SGCentral in the
URL, and couldn’t work out how to change it.) I’m not even sure if what I’m
doing is blogging. If you want to see a real Southern Gospel blog, check out
Avery Fineline (Douglas Harrison), who to my mind is the model of a very
fine blogger – knowledgeable, opinionated, sympathetic, sometimes controversial
and an excellent writer.
2.
I’m a freelance writer. According to
this article, the median annual income for writers and other creative types
in Australia was $11,700 in 2000-01. I make several times that, which must mean
that I’m highly successful. Yet, for several years I haven’t been making enough
to support my family. I read a posting titled
Earning a Six-Figure Income from Blogging? on
former youth pastor Darren Rowse’s site, and was inspired to see if I too
could make money from the internet. I decided to start with something I knew and
liked, and something that could be tacked onto my existing website. Hence
Southern Gospel Beat. It’s an experiment. I wouldn’t expect to make much from
this site (and wouldn’t be comfortable making much from a Christian site). But
if I find that I can make something, I might then try launching something new.
Go Away Does Singing News
want international subscribers? Local readers pay
$20 a year for the magazine.
Those of us who live outside North America are asked to fork out $70. (By
contrast, the Gaither Homecoming magazine charges locals
$19.95 a year,
and $30.95 for international subscribers.) July 15th, 2005 Mark the Hermit
Are we to see less of Mark
Lowry? According to the latest edition of his “whenever I get around to it”
email newsletter (subscribe
here):
I think I'm becoming a
hermit, and I like it. (Sounds like a song). But, I really love being alone. I
love the quiet. The peace. The solitude. I used to hate all that. I still love
being around people but the older I get, the more I like being with just me. I
can write, think, work on my Web site - on my own time.
A quick look at the
Southern Gospel blogosphere over the past week.
Douglas Harrison,
ever-willing to probe behind the scenes,
wonders lengthily why more groups don’t handle their own bookings – like
Signature Sound Quartet and Gold City - instead of using expensive agencies. He
concludes:
If booking
agencies don't innovate and adapt - if they don't start sending scouts and
contacts out to religious and church music conferences, to pastors conferences
and denominational leadership training seminars - in short if they don't
invigorate their exhausted databases with new churches and other venues that
haven't heard of sg's headliners, more groups are going to start following SSQ
and Gold City. It's just a matter of reaching a point where the potential
benefits outweigh the risk and cost, and I think we're nearing that point.
Read it all.
Meanwhile, Chris Unthank
reveals his
top five all-male trios, and tells us why they’re the best.
Is it really
worth it for a regional group to rent a booth, make the trip, or even be on a
showcase at NQC? …This is an honest open question that I would like
some comments on. I really don't know one way or other if it is worth it or not.
I can see a few advantages, but I see more cost than profit from it.
And finally, Ann Downing
posted
an audio blog last Friday, thanking God that it was Friday.
Welcome I launched
Martin Roth Christian Commentary in April 2002 (it was at first called
MartinRothOnline.com). I am a journalist, living in Australia, and I saw it as
something of a ministry.
I wrote that I intended the site as “a service to Christians trying to live
under God in a post-Christian world.”
But I found
that my articles on topics such as Christian living attracted relatively few
readers. By contrast, my writings on three subjects in particular seemed to
inspire a big response.
The first of
these topics was
Christian blogging. I wrote often on the subject and also started a list of
Christian blogs, that later evolved into the
blogs4God portal.
The second
topic that clearly attracted visitors to my website was Christianity and war. I
wrote
a long series of articles, in part trying to work out my own attitudes as a
Christian to the looming invasion of Iraq. I have been honored by a request from
the Library of Congress for permission to include the articles in their planned
MINERVA collection of online resources concerning the Iraq war.
And the third
topic was Southern Gospel. I’m a big fan, despite living in Australia (I’ve
never attended a Southern Gospel event in my life), and I wrote
occasional pieces. It was these that attracted more response than just about
anything else on my website. I stopped updating the site in January 2004, to try
to write a novel, but continued to receive regular emails about my Southern
Gospel postings.
I love
listening to Southern Gospel, and I love writing about it. So I have started
Southern Gospel Beat. I hope you will enjoy the site.
Daywind
Soundtracks is proud to advise our singers of a once-in-a lifetime opportunity!