After four weeks of voting, the madness has finally ended, and you have chosen your Quartet Madness Championship Quartet. Along the way, we’ve seen some legends go down to great young talent, and some legends show their impressive staying power in dominating the voting. The final round of voting was as exciting as any, with two matchups in particular going back and forth until the end. Neither were really decided until after 100 ballots came in. A phenomenal 113 ballots were cast this week, which far exceeded my expectations going into this process. Thanks to all of you who have voted, commented, and told friends about it. Not once have I felt like anyone was wanting to argue or get upset; instead, you realized the purpose, which was to have fun. Your participation has been encouraging to me. Now, without further ado, here is your Championship Quartet!
TENOR: Jay Parrack vs David Phelps
The tenor bracket was perhaps the most unpredictable, and the final lived up to the excitement earlier rounds showed. In this clash of nearly opposite styles, Parrack led early, followed by the usual evening charge showed by Gaither Vocal Band members (do you think their fans just don’t get up early?) For a while it looked like Phelps would prevail, but the last 20 or so ballots were dominated by the former Gold City tenor, and it was JAY PARRACK over David Phelps, 60-53.
LEAD: Glen Payne vs. Guy Penrod
Penrod got a lot of support, especially early in the voting, but in the end, there was no way he was going to stop the great GLEN PAYNE, who won rather easily, 75-38.
BARITONE: Mark Trammell vs. Jim Brady
If you had asked me before the final who would get the most votes out of all the finalists, I would have said Glen Payne. But in reality, it was the baritone slot that provided the largest margin of victory. After another decade or two under his belt, maybe it will be different for Jim Brady, but right now, MARK TRAMMELL is the people’s choice for baritone, by an 81-32 vote.
BASS: George Younce vs. Tim Riley
Here’s the one I was most excited about, and most of you would probably say the same. Didn’t you know at the very beginning you would be voting for one of these two against the other? The matchup lived up to the anticipation. Younce and Riley literally stayed within 1-3 votes of each other for the first 80 or so ballots cast. It was then Riley who got a little bit of a cushion. Just when I thought it was over, the master Cathedral bass made his run to take a slight lead with just under 100 ballots cast. But, suprisingly, Younce could not hold on, and it was TIM RILEY who received 8 consecutive votes to eventually pull away, 60-52.
PIANO:
It was a two-horse race from the very beginning, but ANTHONY BURGER ended up winning easily with 48 votes, challenged only by the 26 votes cast for Roger Bennett.
So there you have it. Jay Parrack, Glen Payne, Mark Trammell, and Tim Riley, with Anthony Burger on the keys. The Golden Cathedrals? Cathedral City? How do you think they would sound? Let’s hear some comments!
Thanks to everyone again for your participation. I hope everyone will stick around even now that this competition is over. Adam and I would be thrilled if you would be a part of what we are doing here at Southern Gospel Critique. We’d love to have 30 comments on every post! Put us in your RSS Feed, or in your bookmarks, and you won’t miss a thing. This is the greatest music in the world; let’s do our part to keep it going.
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