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.

After nearly a month of voting for your favorite southern gospel singers of all time, we have finally reached our final round.  This week you will choose the four members of our Quartet Madness Championship Quartet.  There have been several upsets along the way, and some singers who haven’t even sniffed an upset.  Your votes have narrowed it down to just two singers for each of the parts of the quartet.  Here are the matchups for this final round, and the path they took in the bracket to get to the finals:

TENORS

Jay Parrack: defeated Denver Crumpler 57-21, Chris Allman 42-36, David Sutton 46-28

David Phelps: defeated Johnny Parrack 56-24, Danny Funderburk 42-36, Brian Free 42-33

LEADS

Glen Payne: defeated Les Beasley 75-1, Jim Hamill 63-16, Gerald Wolfe 52-23

Guy Penrod: defeated Jonathan Wilburn 42-35, Ivan Parker 47-31, Ronnie Booth 46-29

BARITONES

Mark Trammell: defeated Parker Jonathan 58-7, Doug Anderson 57-16, Scott Inman 47-17

Jim Brady: defeated Mike LeFevre 35-31, Rodney Griffin 38-36, Scott Howard 41-24

BASSES

George Younce: defeated Gerald Williams 72-3, Armond Morales 71-3, Jeff Chapman 56-9

Tim Riley: defeated Ed O’Neal 64-10, Tim Duncan 58-16, Mike Holcomb 55-9

As always, your instructions are to vote for your favorites, however you define that.  You’re not necessarily voting for the best-sounding quartet, unless you want to do it that way.  The idea is to vote for your favorite individuals.  Make sure you tell us what your championship quartet is in the comments section!  Follow the link below to cast your final vote! (And there’s even a bonus question!)

Click here to take survey

With all the voting done except for the finals, let’s take a look at some of the numbers.

Here’s how our eight finalists rank in terms of highest total percentage of vote throughout the tournament:
George Younce – 93.0%
Tim Riley – 83.5%
Glen Payne – 82.6%
Mark Trammell – 80.2%
Jay Parrack – 63.0%
David Phelps – 60.1%
Guy Penrod – 58.7%
Jim Brady – 55.6%

It’s interesting that our two most dominant singers are facing each other in the finals. That is definitely the one to keep an eye on, in my opinion. Jim Brady has been the beneficiary of the closest wins.

Which groups have performed the best in the tournament?

• The Kingsmen had the most total entrants in the tournament (9) followed by the Cathedrals and Gold City (8 each)
• The Cathedrals had the most alumni (6) in the second round, followed by Gold City (5).
• The Cathedrals and Gold City both had 4 in the third round.
• The Cathedrals and Gold City were both 3-1 in the third round, while the Gaither Vocal Band went 2-0.  Jim Brady of the Booth Brothers is the only finalist not from one of those three groups.
• Signature Sound members and alumni were 3-0 in the first round, but 0-3 in the second round.

Despite having all those entrants, the George Younce vs. Tim Riley match is the only Cathedrals vs. Gold City matchup of the tournament!  Starting to anticipate it even more?

Jay Parrack, beware…Gaither Vocal Band alumni are 3-0 against Gold City alumni (Penrod beat Wilburn and Parker, while Phelps has beaten Brian Free).

Now, what about how you voted individually? Through your discussions and comments, I was able to keep track of how many of you voted if you chose to make it public.  Special thanks to yankeegospelgirl, who is the only person who commented publicly with every vote they made in the tournament.  For each person for whom I was able to record more than 20 votes, here are the top winning percentages.  In other words, how often did the person you picked win their matchup? Again, these are just the ones I have recorded that you made public, either here or on Absolutely Gospel’s forum.

David Bruce Murray – 84.4%

lee65 – 78.6%

Adam Edwards – 77.3%

Joe M – 72.7%

quartet-man – 71.7%

Brian (me) – 69.6%

yankeegospelgirl – 67.9%

Daniel Mount – 66.7%

Brad – 62.5%

Maestro – 60.0%

david – 48.1% (going against the grain!)

Thanks for all your participation, in votes and comments, so far.  It has exceeded my expectations, and has been a lot of fun for me.  I hope it has been for you as well.  See you Monday for the finals!

Our championship round is now set after your votes have come in for your favorite baritones and basses in the third round of voting! There were no surprises here, and no close matches either. After 65 votes:

BARITONES:
Mark Trammell remained dominant, beating Scottie Inman 47-17.
In the only match that was close in early voting, Jim Brady eventually pulled well away from Scott Howard, winning 41-24.

BASSES
George Younce had his closest match yet, but still kept Jeff Chapman out of double digits, winning 56-9.
Tim Riley was just as dominant over his counterpart, defeating Mike Holcomb 55-9.

The championship round of our Quartet Madness bracket is set, and voting will begin on Monday. Here are the matchups. You can comment on the matchups if you want, but try to save your picks until Monday’s post! I’ll check in tomorrow morning with some neat info about how you have voted in the bracket so far.

TENOR – Jay Parrack vs. David Phelps
LEAD – Glen Payne vs. Guy Penrod
BARITONE – Mark Trammell vs. Jim Brady
BASS – George Younce vs. Tim Riley

This is just fantastic:

Click here to take survey

With two final matchups on the books, we turn our attention to the Baritone and Bass Brackets, where upsets have been plenty, but the very top seeds have dominated. Scott Inman has a very loyal and passionate set of fans; will it be enough to stop Mark Trammell’s dominance in the Baritone Bracket? Jim Brady just eliminated one fellow Jubilee baritone in Rodney Griffin; will he take out another in Scott Howard? Is George Younce vs. Tim Riley in the finals inevitable, or will Jeff Chapman and Mike Holcomb have something to say about that? It’s coming down to the wire, folks. Click above to vote.

BARITONES
Mark Trammell vs. Scott Inman
Jim Brady vs. Scott Howard

BASSES
George Younce vs. Jeff Chapman
Mike Holcomb vs. Tim Riley

There wasn’t a whole lot of drama in the semifinal round of the Tenor and Lead Brackets. Clear favorites emerged early in all but one matchup and stayed ahead throughout the voting. The Gaither Vocal Band will have representatives in the finals in both brackets after two impressive victories.

TENORS
Jay Parrack soared well over David Sutton into the finals, winning 46-28.
Brian Free led David Phelps during the first half of the voting, but Phelps gained momentum and pulled away, by a 42-33 vote.

LEADS
Glen Payne continued to dominate, although the margin is getting closer with each round. This time, he took care of Gerald Wolfe 52-23.
Like his former Vocal Bandmate, Guy Penrod waited until Monday evening to make a big move, and ended Ronnie Booth’s surprising run, 46-29.

Two of our final four matchups are now set, and they are intriguing, indeed. It will surely be a clash of styles, and perhaps a clash of fan bases. Who will join them in the final round representing the bottom half of the quartet? You will decide starting tomorrow morning!