YouTube videos, cont’d…

Well, another dull Saturday at work...so just as I did last week, I passed my idle time watching some more videos Dean Adkins posted on YouTube.

Actually, not all the videos I watched were posted by Dean...just the good ones.

The best of those that Dean posted that I saw today was one of the Plainsmen Quartet when Rusty Goodman was their bass singer, and they a fun and fancy version of "Dry Bones"..it was quite well done, especially the ending. Yessir, Rusty was quite a good male quartet bass singer.

I suppose it's no secret to those who know me best that it was the bass singers that first attracted me to gospel quartet singing all those years ago. Barbershop basses were OK, but gospel quartet bass singers went way beyond barbershop and R&B groups in terms of style, personality, and what they did with their voices. There was a time when I contemplated doing it myself, but I never pursued it as I might have. And of course, after I became a Christian, my interest was renewed again, but I lived in the wrong part of the country, and the only ones I knew out here might have been a bit threatened by a kid who was so enthusiastic about it, and consequently I never got a lot of encouragement in that direction.

It was while I was watching other bass singer videos today that I noticed something that has always been a sore spot with me, and I thought I'd share that with you as well.

There was a series of videos that featured ultra-low bass singers, and not just gospel ones(and not just singers). One went everywhere from Tim Riley to George Younce to Richard Sterban to JD Sumner to Ivan Rebroff to Tim Storms(the former Guinness record-holder for lowest pitch ever recorded)to Paul David Kennamer of the group Valor.

Now some of those clips, particularly those of Sumner, Sterban, and Rebroff were a joy to listen to, for these are singers who happen to be able to sing very low. Others, such as those with Storms and Kennamer, were not nearly so musical. When it comes to singing, it's not what extremes you can go to so much as it is, is your voice a pleasing musical instrument?

In the case of Kennamer, I fail to see what the excitement about him is based on. Sure, he goes very low, but he's definitely not the lowest singer I've heard, and to me he's partly a creation of his equipment. I just don't hear his singing as that musical as much as it is gratuitous, just making low sounds because he can.

I realize Sumner has been guilty on occasion of doing the same thing, but for me, for gospel singers especially, whether it's a low bass or a freakishly high tenor, or even a lead singer who is intent on demonstrating as many vocal gymnastics he(or she)can in a song is inappropriate for a gospel song. To me, the song is the star attraction, not the singer...and if what the singer does in presenting the song distracts the hearer from the lyrical impact of the song, it's not a good performance...I don't care WHAT the singer does. That's just my humble opinion, but there you have it.

I admit there have been many performances where what a bass singer does with the song does excite me, but that is always more due with how he sings more than simply what notes he happens to hit.

Now anytime the subject of who the lowest singer is comes up, I always hear from the Storms fans about how he can hit notes so low they can't even be heard by human beings.

To which I say...how do you know how low they are if you can't hear them? When told that there is equipment that can measure that, I REALLY pooh-pooh it then! If I have to have that kind of equipment to truly hear how low your voice is, what's the virtue in that? To me, Storms is not even a singer as much as he is a sideshow, and not a very entertaining one at that.

To be fair, during one of thsoe videos, Storms was interviewed, and he appears to be a pleasant, humble person who doesn't let all that hype and hoopla go to his head. But just based on what I saw, Storms is not that musical, and thus he doesn't count when evaluating who the lowest bass SINGERS are.

I have this habit(as do many of you, I'm sure)when listening to or watching music to sing along with it and participate in the joy of the performance as much as I'm able. I confess that when watching those bass videos, I nearly got a sore throat just WATCHING and listening to them.

But it did make me feel good that most of those basses didn't go lower than I can.

And yes, it did make me feel really good to watch more of Dean's vintage gospel videos.

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