.... continued from above.....

Sometimes multiple players have multiple versions of a song in their heads, and it's really funny (on a good day) when we all launch into a piece and it ain;t the same piece at all! Hardi thought I was nuts, for example, about the major-key sound of one item, till he finally heard an ancient recording of it done that way. He'd only heard it done minor. Of course I thought he was nuts too.

So..... to keep us out of hell, hopefully.....

Regarding Song Versions

We like to listen to as many versions and approaches as we can get samples for, and then let it become our own song in our own sound. This tends to depend on who brought the song to the group-- what they have in their head as they teach it.

We do not, repeat NOT, try to emulate any one singer or band. It's not about us, it's about the song being the song; we try to discover and allow its essential character to come through us, as a lyric and tune. Of course it's also about God, since we are mostly a gospel group.

So, for example, we are not Carter Family Re-Enactors, even when or especially when we do a piece they originated. But what we may have absorbed of their sound may come through somehow when we do black gospel! We DO replicate the go-for-it creativity of good bands, but we most definitely have our own sound, which we still cannot define, and which evolves as we hear new subgenres, new approaches, and new players. I guess our sound is best described as, "These fools will try anything." And we always prefer to try a new piece imperfectly, than to re-use anything we are tired of.

This is one reason our efforts have grown church attendance and gained new adult baptisms. We really mean "Come as you are" and we ourselves model it.

~Susan