New Southern Gospel Favorites, Vol. 2
Various Arrangers
I have been using New Southern Favorites, Volume 2 with my church choir for about six months now, and it gets a solid 4½ stars on a scale of 1 to 5. If you like current Southern Gospel, you should appreciate the inclusion of recently popularized tunes from the past three or four years like the Hoppers' "Marriage Supper Of The Lamb," The Isaacs' "Stand Still," and Southern Brothers' "When The Clouds Roll Back." You should also be very pleased with New Southern Gospel, Volume 2 if you use CD accompaniment tracks. Volume levels are consistent, rhythms are easy to distinguish in the mix, and the overall music track production quality is outstanding. I've had members of my choir request me to order them a copy of the listening CD . . . and not just for rehearsal purposes . . . for listening enjoyment. They love this book, and the recording is a big part of the reason why. Orchestrations and a conductor's score are also available for churches that have those resources. If you use some type of keyboard accompaniment, the score included in the book is very playable. Unfortunately, this book is perfect bound, which means it will NOT stay open on a piano or organ (unless you treat it violently). The same thing goes for getting it to lay flat in a singer's folder. At 163 pages, it would have been wiser to make this a spiral bound book. The music in New Southern Favorites, Vol. 2 is stylistically consistent despite the use of five different orchestrators. Bass singers get to shine on "The Old Time Way" while "Walkin' And Talkin' " gives the Sopranos exposure. Ballads like "Love Brought Me Back" and "As If The Cross Was Not Enough" offer a contrast to upbeat numbers like "He's Watching Me" and "Believing One Day." You could use this book for a full concert of songs if you wished. It has a nice flow and there's some variety from one song to the next. "Somebody Sing Me A Gospel Song" doesn't follow the Gold City arrangement, but instead offers a medley of choruses with "Christ Arose," "The Old Rugged Cross," and "When We All Get To Heaven." The collection ends with a medium tempo 6/8 number called "I'm Still Amazed." My own church choir consists of 30 volunteers including at least two or three in each section who possess some music reading skills. We've found these arrangements to be challenging in spots, but nothing too difficult to pull off after a few rehearsals. I'd call it a "Medium" difficulty collection. Vocal ranges for the ladies' parts are very reasonable. There's a few spots where the Sopranos have harmony rather than melody, which may be a concern if your choir lacks music readers in the soprano section. The Bass vocal range tends to be well within normal standards as well. Tenors, on the other hand, seem to have a dispropotionate number of notes at or near the top of their range. Some passages ask the tenors to stay around the F above middle C for extended periods, for example. A few options for solos are included, but the collection is not overly soloist dependent. I strongly recommend New Southern Favorites, Volume 2. It's probably beyond the scope of smaller and/or lesser skilled choirs, but medium to large groups will enjoy singing from it and virtually all traditional congregations will love hearing this music.
--- by David Bruce Murray
Arrangers/Orchestrators: Michael Frazier, Marty Hamby, Bradley Knight, Don Marsh, and Russell Mauldin
Publisher: Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing
Producer: Craig Adams
Song Titles: "Marriage Supper Of The Lamb," "The Old Time Way," "I Have Seen The Lord," "Believing One Day," "Stand Still," "Walkin' And Talkin'," "Get Out Of The Boat," "Love Brought Me Back," "When The Clouds Roll Back," "He Was, He Is, He Is To Come," "Somebody Sing Me A Gospel Song," "He's Watching Me," "As If The Cross Was Not Enough," and "I'm Still Amazed"
Rating: 4½ stars