A night with a legend without porfolio

First of all, it's great to be in my new home!

Kudos to Susan Unthank for her patience and assistance in moving my little corner of the web from SGBlogNews.net over to SouthernGospelNews.com...my online home base for three and a half years now!

Anyone into southern style gospel music knows that the number one spot on the web to visit is SouthernGospelNews.com...and I have been very proud to be a member of their staff for just over two years now. I'm privileged to be a part of their team...and to be on the front page of the site for more than just my history articles. Thanks again, Susan!

The Unthank family has been a force behind the scenes now in the gospel music industry for some time now...and appropriately, my first entry here will be about another gospel music force that has blessed gospel music fans and the industry for three decades himself.

Tracy Dartt is a Dove Award winning songwriter, with titles such as "The Last Sunday", "With Him", "Your Blesser Ain't Never Been Blessed", and most recently, "God On The Mountain". He is also a fine singer and the leader of a family trio that is the only full-time gospel group touring that is based in California.

Dartt's major contribution to gospel music are his distinctive and unique songs, which defy conventional gospel music cliches, and state the truth of the gospel message in fresh and unconventional ways. In addition, he refuses to be confined or hemmed in to a particular musical style. He has written songs of a conventional southern gospel nature, of a more modern country sound, of a contemporary pop approach, of a fun, novelty style, and even a polka! It is impossible to predict what the next Tracy Dartt song will sound like musically...the only certainty in his music is that it will convey the gospel message. and it will express properly understood Christian doctrine.

I saw Dartt's trio in a small Fresno church Sunday night, and was thoroughly charmed and entertained, not only by Dartt, his wife(a pretty fair pianist), and their son, Stone Mountain(himself a fair vocalist and sound man), but by BJ Speer, a young man who sings with the Dartts and is also featured on songs of his own.

The Dartts managed to sing their most popular songs and requested ones, and blended in brand new songs with some highly entertainign novelty numbers, such as "I Wonder If David Danced The Polka", a sort of "theater of the mind" song that envisions David performing Psalms in the style of polkas, much like Dartt himself grew up with in his native Minnesota(and I did on the farm in Kerman, CA).

Dartt is a true artist and communicator, not allowing himself to conform to other people's ideas of how he "should" write or sing, but doing so as he chooses, and as the Spirit moves him. A highlight oif the night for me was the hilarious "Let's Form A Committee", a song that will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to accomplish anything at all in the context of a church structure. Who says the church is above a poke in the ribs once in a while? Not Tracy Dartt, that's for sure.

I got a chance to talk to Dartt after the concert for a while, and he properly appreciates many of today's finest gospel singers, but is troubled(as I am)by the preponderance of pop influences in the music, out of concern that the basic identity of gospel music is being threatened by the "watering down" of the music, and the reliance upon lyrical cliches.

But like all the true troupers of gospel music over the years, Dartt continues to make the kinds of music he feels he should make, without over-reliance on marketing or current trends. He is an artist who, despite not getting the recognition that perhaps he deserves, is committed to practicing his craft in the way he feels he should, and for him is the right way.

It was a pleasure to be in the company of Tracy Dartt, a gospel music legend in his own way.

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