This past New Year’s Eve, my family had the honor to be in service with my dear friends, The Fletcher Family, from Mountain City, TN.  Bro. Leonard Fletcher, Pastor of Dyson’s Grove Baptist Church & songwriter extraordinaire, his wife, Linda Fletcher, and daughter Brittany Fletcher.  My home church, Bethel Missionary Baptist, is still talking about what a blessing and treat it was to have Bro. Leonard and his family at our New Year’s Eve service.  Below are some videos of them from our service.

All but one of the songs was written by Bro. Leonard and if you are interested in learning more about his songs, let me know.

The Old-Fashioned Way

God’s Word Will Stand

Somewhere The Birds Are Singing

I’m Not Ashamed

Better Farther On

This is a clip of a brand new song from The Fletcher Family that will be on their upcoming new project.  Bro. Leonard really outdid himself on this one!!!

No More Night

Please remember to give honor and praise to whom it belongs this Christmas holiday.

Jesus Christ is the only reason for our season and we should all take a few moments to honor Him on this celebration of His birth.

God bless you all and Merry Christmas!!!

EDIT: Well, it’s a great album, but no longer available in the US. Hopefully some of you got to take advantage of the free offer!

Not often you get a free gift online that much good, but this album is great, as long as you are not a stickler for non-secular songs only for the season.  Honestly, there were only a couple of tunes that I didn’t care for, but it’s free and the selections are from popular groups/singers/orchestras/etc., so there’s no reason to really complain…..especially since it is FREE!

Enjoy!  (Click here for more details)

The offer mentioned in this post has been extended:

http://www.southerngospelcritique.com/?p=682

Typically I don’t care for posting ads on my blog, but this one is too good not to share with you.

For today only, if you purchase a gift certificate from www.Restaurant.com and use the coupon code “ninety“, you can get a $25 gift certificate for only $1 or 90% off of the original price of the certificate.  These certificates are good for one year (in most cases) and can be used at anytime.  Usually, there is a minimum amount you have to spend at the restaurant, such as $35, so if you use the certificate, you can eat the $35 meal for only $11 ($35 – $25 (redeem certificate) + $1 (cost of the certificate)).

You are welcome!

This email from Ben & Jerry’s really sickened & irritated me and quite honestly ticked me off, so I won’t be indulging with Ben & Jerry’s anymore.

Guess it’ll be Häagen-Dazs for me from now on.

In an announcement from Gerald Wolfe:

…Plans are well underway for our upcoming 20th Anniversary recording in Temple, Texas on Thursday and Friday August 6 & 7.  We just learned last week that not only will we be doing a “live” recording for a CD, we will also be doing a “live” VIDEO recording as well!  This won’t be just any video recording… this one will be filmed in high-definition!  We will be recording both concerts for the CD / DVD release, so pick one night… or both nights, and order your tickets while they are still available!…

Kudos to Greater Vision for being a leader in technology for our genre, but if the recording isn’t released in Blu-Ray HD, what’s the point.  The video would still have to be compressed to fit a 4.7 GB DVD or a 8.5 GB dual-layer DVD. 

Hopefully, Blu-ray would be offered from Greater Vision since they are recording in HD, but honestly, how many SG fans have Blu-Ray players?  I would venture to say that a very small percentage have the technology to play a Blu-Ray DVD, but maybe their live-in kids or grandkids have a PS3 that could handle the format. 

So should Greater Vision risk being stuck with a product that might not move, or should they bite the bullet and be a front-runner in Southern Gospel HD.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but even Bill Gaither has yet to release a video project in true HD format.  I’ve looked over his site and can’t find any.

My conclusion: why invest in a product that’s most likely not going to move?  Southern Gospel is notoriously behind the times when it comes to technology, which I attribute to the older generation that makes up the majority of SG fans.  My family still has people asking for cassettes, so I can only imagine what the ‘big’ groups are faced with.  Sometimes it’s difficult to be in a genre that constantly lags behind other genres, but thankfully we still have the very best music in the world!

Maybe in a few years when DVDs are the new VHS, and blu-ray is common like DVDs are today, we’ll see more offerings of HD, but until that day comes, I’ll not be holding my breath in anticipation.

I uploaded a brand new site for Larry’s Studio today.  Check it out here:
www.LarrysStudio.com

This is the studio where my family, The Edwards Family, records.  Larry Spears’ owns the studio and is a dear friend to my family.  You can hear some of his work on the new site.  I especially like his rendition of “Ghost Riders In The Sky.”  Larry is an extraordinary musician, as you can enjoy in his version of the old country tune.