James D. Vaughan Gospel Quartet Festival

So, late last month I attended the Saturday concert and I thought I should give a short reviews.

Gold City was first and unfortunately that afternoon Tim Riley had suffered a mild stroke, which he is still recovering from.  Gold City sang as a trio and did a very admirable job on such short notice.  The absence of Tim was a huge downer (as I'm sure it was for the Quartet as well) but Gold City still put on a good set.

Mark Trammell Quartet was next.  Their set was a bit subdued and suffered a little bit from a lack of uptempo music.  They are undoubtedly a wonderful quartet with great vocals, but their program might need some tweaking.  New bass Randy Byrd did a very good job and although I missed Pat Barker, they have a great replacement.

Next up was The Kingsmen.  They were the highlight of the night for me.  Excellent vocals at 3 positions and Ray Dean is still a good bass.  Chris is an absolute star and I hope this lineup stays together forever!  HA!  Seriously they were good.

Finally was Brian Free and Assurance.  Brian is pretty much the same as he always has been.  They had good song selection, except they still don't feature Bill Shivers near enough.  The best vocalist in the group should get a larger number of solos.  Overall though a fine set.

This year's lineup was amazing.  If Tim had been there I think this might have gone down as the best Quartet Festival I've ever attended.  Even so, it was great and memorable.