December 2003 ~ The Southern Gospel Players
As we come to the end of 2003, I thought that I would tell you what some of my friends and I are doing during the holidays, besides just spending some time at home with our families and resting a bit for the year. Throughout the year, most of the Southern Gospel Groups have the opportunity of working together on several occasions. Many friendships are developed, and for the most part, we are all like one big happy family. Now, with the convenience of cellular phones, lots of Southern Gospel artists keep in touch with each other on a daily or weekly basis. Since we have free time to spare while riding the bus, lots of ideas are passed around. One of those ideas is now becoming a reality.

Since a lot of my friends are fellow musicians, we passed around the idea of all teaming up to do a Southern Gospel band recording. At this time it is not complete, but is well in the works. Most people buy only the groups recordings that feature all singing, and folks may only have one or two instrumental recordings. With this in mind, it makes sense to give the fans one great instrumental recording that features most all of Southern Gospel's musicians.

The project title will be "The Southern Gospel Players". It will have twelve songs featuring over 30 musicians! Putting a recording like this together is a big undertaking. It isn't at all possible to get that many musicians together at once. With the conveniences of modern technology, all of your favorite musicians have contributed to this recording by doing their part at recording studios across the country.

The initial conversations behind this idea were between Randy "Scoot" Shelnut Jr., Ricky Free, Randy Miller, and myself. We have already got the project started, and perhaps while you are reading this, some player is adding his instrument in a studio now.

As I mentioned before, this is an instrumental recording, however, we had a few of our favorite Southern Gospel personalities to sing a verse or a chorus of a song. The queen of Gospel Music, Mrs. Dottie Rambo, will be heard singing a song that she penned titled "I Go To The Rock", Squire Parsons helped us out on a chorus of his most popular song, "Sweet Beulah Land", and Mike Bowling recorded a wonderful rendition of the Kenny Hinson classic, "Call Me Gone".

Other songs on this recording include: We'll Understand It Better By And By, Joy Unspeakable, Camping In Canaan's Land, Too Much To Gain To Lose, Oh Happy Day, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, I've Got That Old Time Religion, Are You Washed In The Blood, and more.

I went in the studio on October 21, 2003, to get the whole thing started. By just playing the piano with a click track, we now have something to send to all of the other musicians to build upon. The next step was to add the drums and bass guitar tracks. Mike Hopper (The Hoppers), Doug Riley (Gold City), Scoot Shelnut (Dixie Echoes), and Ricky Free (Brian Free & Assurance), are the featured drummers on this recording. On the bass guitar, you will hear Scoot (Dixie Echoes), Adam Borden (Gold City), Corey Pearson (Diplomats), Ben Isaacs (The Isaacs), and Aaron Crabb (The Crabb Family).

After the piano, bass guitar, and drums were all recorded, then it was sent to the rest of the musicians. On the steel guitar, dobro, and banjo, Steve "Rabbit" Easter will provide his special touch. Randy Miller will add some harmonica and guitar. Channing Eleton (Gold City) and Andrew Ishee (Palmetto State Quartet) will add the organ. Adam Crabb (Crabb Family) will play some harmonica, Jeff Tolbert (Primitive Quartet) on fiddle, Sonya Isaacs (Isaacs) on mandolin, Randy Shelnut (Dixie Echoes) on guitars, Mike Riddle (Primitive Quartet) on guitars, Jason Crabb (Crabb Family) on guitars, Becky Isaacs Bowman (Isaacs) on guitars, John Bowman (Isaacs) on banjo, Roger Fortner (McKameys) on Guitars, Tim Lovelace on a little bit of everything, and a several more players to be added.

We have not completed this recording, so a release date is not available, but we are predicting April 2004. It will be available at www.stewartvarnado.com and at your local Christian bookstore, as well as on the product table of the Dixie Echoes and various other musicians.