This past weekend, a friend of mine gave me a DVD (made from a video that someone had shot with a home video recorder) that has immediately gone on my all-time "favorite gifts" list. Allow me just a few minutes to step 19 years in the past.
It was the 1988 National Quartet Convention, Nashville, Tennessee. This particular footage came from one of the week's Chapel Services and after Dr. Buck Morton led the congregation through a few hymns, a group came on stage. The pianist began the opening notes of "The Plan of Salvation" and for the next hour and a half...it was something else.
Many of you recognize that song as the opening of many Cathedrals concerts.
George Younce, Glen Payne, Mark Trammell, Danny Funderburk and Gerald Wolfe were in great form that early morning. The song list included "The Blood Washed Band," "I Can See The Hand," "Sin Will Take You Farther," "Daystar." "The Heavenly Parade," "The Longer I Serve Him," "This Old House" and many others.
Oh, don't forget the closer: "We Shall See Jesus."
They also included some "tributes" to some of their favorites during their stand. Gerald did his impression of Peg McKamey Bean and Jerry Goff, while the whole group did a fairly good impersonation of the Inspirations.
The whole thing was just "killer." (Yeah, I know, of all the descriptive words I could have used, I used "killer." But I left you with no doubt of how good it was, did I?)
I sat with my soon-to-be 17 year old son and watched this DVD (again) last night. He wasn't even born when this concert was taped. By the time the Cathedrals retired in 1999, he had just turned nine and since he was so young, he didn't get to see what many of us were blessed to be a part of.
Even though I had heard everyone of those jokes George told at least 200 times, I laughed at every one of them. I was just as thrilled as those people in that room when he'd slide on a song's last few notes. I still had chill bumps when Glen sang the last verse of "We Shall See Jesus." Danny was hitting notes that no tenor in his right mind would even consider at 9 a.m.
And, more than ever, I truly saw how much Nick Trammell looks just like his dad - who, by the way, was not even 30 when this was recorded. I should send Nick a copy of this so he can see how he's going to look in a few years.
On second thought, I won't. No one deserves a scare like that. (Now we're even, Mark.)
Anyway, at the risk of sounding like Roy Pauley, there's no doubt these guys had something that you just don't seem to find in huge doses any longer. It's not just a thing about singing, either. It's the entire "package." The personalities, the songs, the stage work - all of it - works with the singing to create something magical that entirely too many people never got to enjoy.
You have no idea how much I sometimes feel for the younger people in Southern Gospel who never got to experience the "Cats" in concert.
And then I realize just how truly blessed I've been to not only see them at work, but to have known them as friends. When I think back over those concerts, the backstage talks with the guys, sharing lunch with George at an Ohio Applebee's (I'll write about that someday but be ready to laugh your head off), my wife and I talking with Glen and Van Payne in Red Deer, Alberta, for an hour - not realizing that in less than three months, Glen would be gone...
...it's easy for me to say that DVD is truly Christmas in October.
