My Dream Quartet - Tenor Singer

I always have someone asking me who my favorite group is or who my favorite singer is. We have so many good ones to choose from. We have been doing this thing called southern gospel for about a hundred years. It is hard to say who the best is because we have so many different styles of singers. Some have their strong points and some have their weak points. And no matter how much we like someone or how great we think there are rest assured there is someone out there that thinks they are overrated.

So this is purely my opinion but I am going to conquer the subject of my dream quartet. Let me put just a couple stipulations on this. I am going to keep this to guys that are still alive because we all know that the Statesmen are the greatest quartet to ever walk. ;-) I might write a post sometime later and just include my dream quartet (guys living and dead) which I might get to see once we get to heaven. And while picking these talents, I am also keeping in mind how I think they would work together and how I think their voices would blend. Although I think there are some great voices out there, they just weren’t meant to be put in the context of a group. Just like it was rumored one time that Elvis Presley tried out for a quartet and he was told he would never make it because he had too much vibrato in his voice. There are some voices or personalities that just don’t fit.

I am actually splitting this subject into several different posts. I will try to conquer one position each post.

Lets start out with the tenor singer. This one was pretty easy for me since we were talking about southern gospel quartets. You have phenomenal voices like Larry Ford, David Phelps, Bobby Clark, Larnelle Harris and the list goes on. Although I think that Larnelle has the single greatest voices to ever be in any field of music, I don’t think I would pick him for this spot. When he started out with the Gaither Vocal Band he sang lead. When Steve Green left he moved up to tenor He was able to hold both positions very well. Even though he is past 60 now he has not lost one single thing. The man can still sing.

For the tenor position, I would have to pick Michael Booth. I can hear the surprise in your voices and the rolling of some eyes. Let me explain. I know he is with one of the top groups right now and you are thinking I am picking him just because I am a Booth Brothers nut. I do like the Booth Brothers but I cant say that they are my favorite. I think Michael is a really really good singer. I think he has this whole concept of harmony and singing in a group pretty well. The Booth Brothers are a testament to that because how can you beat the harmony of the Booth Brothers? Plus Michael turned down a scholarship to a pretty prestigious music school. If I remember right it was a drumming scholarship.

I think Michael’s greatest strength is his communication skills. He has no problems taking the MC reigns for the Booth Brothers and he can have you laughing rolling in the floor at one moment and then the next have you balling your eyes out. Then when he sings, he knows how to put just the right touch to get the message across effectively. If you have any doubts of this just listen to him sing songs like Look For Me At Jesus Feet, The Night Before Easter, and Trust His Heart.

That’s it for today. Tune in next time when we will talk about lead singers.