Most of you probably have at least heard of “March Madness”, and if you are a sports fan like me, you will probably spend a good bit of time watching college basketball tournaments this month. The NCAA Basketball Championship Tournament has taken a life of its own over the last decade or two, piquing the interest of even the most casual sports fans, and even non-sports fans. Its 64-team (or 65, or 68?) single elimination bracket format is easily adaptable to fit an infinite number of competitions, serious or not. For fun, I thought I’d bring a little “madness” to the southern gospel world this month.
I’ve seen some variations of this over the last couple of years, but I’ve never seen it quite like what we’re going to do here at Southern Gospel Critique. The concept is very simple: you will vote on your favorite southern gospel singers in a series of head-to-head individual “matchups”. There will be four brackets, one for each quartet part (tenor, lead, baritone, bass), with sixteen singers in each bracket. Each matchup will “eliminate” one singer, while the other will move on to the next round, until we have whittled the field down to four, one from each bracket. Unlike the basketball tournament, our “Final Four” will not be “competing” against each other, but instead will comprise our Championship Quartet of four singers.
I have already done my very best to choose 16 singers of each part, out of any era of southern gospel, past or present. I tried to get a good mix of the legends, and current favorites. There will surely be some of your favorites that didn’t make my “cut”, but hopefully the ones I chose will be the ones that have the best chance to get votes and win.
I have set up the entire tournament, and we will begin tomorrow with the first round of the Tenor Bracket. All you have to do is come here and vote in the polls I have set up. And tell your friends/family/twitter followers/blog readers to join us! The more votes, the better the result! You are also welcome to share your thoughts in the comments for each of these posts, telling us who you voted for, or giving any thoughts you have about the singers (remaining positive at all times, of course!). This is all for fun, not to create rivalries or start arguments. See you tomorrow, and happy voting!
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