This month I am going to feature albums by male solo artists. I have already done two months worth of female solo artists and realized I hadn't yet focused attention on the men who brought their music ministry to many.
Not that there is any shortage of men in Christian and Gospel music. The contrary, in fact. But it seems most of the records I have that feature men as the lead singers are group collaborations, quartets, trios, or family records, as I featured last month.
I do not know if there are fewer male solo records in Pentecostal music compared to the former mentioned releases or if it's just that I haven't found many of them yet. Most of the former records are found by general online searches, not for specific names. That is how I come across the wonderful lesser known records I share. And unless a solo record features one of those general search terms, I may have overlooked many of them. It's also easier to spot a Pentecostal record on sight by the women and their PhD's! It's harder to spot Pentecostal men on a record cover on first glance.
So if you know of any solo male artists I have not listed in the labels list, let me know! I would appreciate it! Leave a comment or drop me an email!
On to the first selection this month...
There are a few United Pentecostal musicians who achieved moderate fame beyond the walls of their church, the camp meetings, and took their music ministry into "mainstream" to appeal to listeners across many denominations.
Lanny Wolfe and Dottie Rambo are two that immediately come to mind.
While not as a big of a name as those two, there is also Hal Kennedy, who is still celebrated to this day among fans of Southern Gospel music. He is well known for performing with The Dixie Echoes. As far as I know, the other members of The Dixie Echoes were not United Pentecostal, but his involvement with the group certainly spread his ministry to many ears across the nation.
This is Hal's third record. I chose to make it the first to share with you because, as with the records by the Jellisons and the McCools, this record also fell prey to using public domain artwork that appeared on several other releases.
Not this particular pressing, that is. This record was re-released several years later as "He's Life To Me."
This is interesting to me for a few reasons:
1) "He's Life to Me" isn't even a track on the album. So where does the title come from?
2) The record label on the re-release is exactly the same as the original release. So when people bought this reissue, they were buying "He's Life to Me" but opened the record and saw an album with the title "Shoutin' On the Hills." What kind of quality control was there over this release?
3) The return of the public domain album artwork, this time a stock photo of a church. This stock photo has appeared on many other records, none of which (as far as I know) released by Pentecostal records. Really, is there any other genre guilty for doing this? How was this even allowed? Even if it was a small record label, wouldn't they want their records to stand out from others in a store? This phenomenon continues to amaze me.
I am glad to share this wonderful record with you. You can download it
HERE!
Also, to add a note: For now I have free downloads available. But it has been decided that if the blog becomes more popular and I exhaust the standard 200 free downloads Bandcamp gives each month, then we will go with a "pay what you want" option. From what I understand, people will still have an option to not pay and download for free. But if you decide to make a small donation, then all the proceeds will just go back in to this blog. I toyed with the idea of donating the money to a charity, but that would get sticky legally. I wouldn't be able to provide tax receipts for donations, and I don't view the blog as a charity. I view this more as a public service. And if/when we go with a pay what you want option, then whatever money is collected may go back to purchasing new records for the site or upgrading my Bandcamp page to Bandcamp pro. So any money generated from this will benefit others. Any money generated would not go back into my pocket. But, for now, the downloads remain free.
Also, a reader reported problems posting a comment. I did not realize that the settings were only allowing registered users to post comments. I changed the settings to where anybody can post comments. But the comments will wait for moderation before they post. That's just to prevent spam replies. I hope it's now easier for people to comment on my posts.
Thank you for reading and listening!
