Blackwood Gospel Quartet - A Concert Review

On a tip from my good friend John Crenshaw, my wife and I were privileged to take in a wonderful evening of Southern Gospel Quartet music with the Blackwood Gospel Quartet the other night, March 12, 2006 at Bethlehem Christian Church near Elon College, North Carolina. While actually finding the place in the middle of nowhere was a doting task, after arriving and taking in the wonderful music, it was well worth the find!

Currently consisting of Cecil Blackwood’s son, Mark Blackwood, along with former Kingsmen/Carolina Boys members Bryan Hutson and Derrick Boyd and former Dove Brothers Quartet bass, Burman Porter, the name “Blackwood” is a name synonymous with Southern Gospel Music. As far as I am concerned, the name represents Southern Gospel royalty and has proven itself to be one of the most respected names in not only gospel music circles, but in all musical genres. Not many groups have that reputation to boast about.

Anyway, we arrived about 30 minutes before the service was to begin, and as we looked to the platform, we realized we arrived not long after the group did; as they had gotten lost and arrived late. After setting up and getting dressed, about 20 minutes after the service was to begin, the Blackwood Gospel Quartet hit the stage with the quartet classic, “Your First Day in Heaven”. Going through several time honored favorites like “Because He Lives”, “Jesus is Coming Soon”, “The Lighthouse”, “Who am I” and “How Great Thou Art”, the crowd of probably over 250 continued to give their approval to the music they heard. The group also did several songs popularized by some of the groups the members had been a part of in the past like “Getcha to the Other Side”, “Glory Road”, “Come and See the Rising Son” (Bryan Hutson turned in a phenomenal performance on this song!) and “Gonna Rise”. My one gripe was I felt like I was at a Kingsmen/Dove Brothers Quartet concert instead of the Blackwood’s, but they did churn out one old Blackwood favorite, “The Old Country Church”, which was great to hear.

After the usual break for the offering and sales pitch, the group (who was without a piano player) took requests from the audience before John Crenshaw was called upon to help play the piano for the group. It was neat hearing some of the songs being called out from the audience and hearing the group tackle some of them on the spot like “He Touched Me”, “The Old Ship of Zion” (excellent performance of this old Kingsmen favorite), “Sweet Beulah Land”, “House of Gold”, “I’m Feeling Fine”, “Victory in Jesus”, “Peace in the Valley”, “Mansion Over the Hilltop”, “I’ll Fly Away”, “Til the Storm Passes By” and another Blackwood standard, “I’ll Meet you in the Morning”. One interesting tune that was called out was the parody to the Oak Ridge Boys tune, “Go Jonah” (“Elvira”), but the guys pulled it off, much to the crowd’s delight.

Before the night was over, Derrick Boyd shared his testimony of being adopted as a child, and finally coming to meet his real family 6 years ago through some interesting circumstances; after which the group turned in an acapella rendition of the classic, “Oh What a Savior”. Bryan Hutson gave a very touching and heartfelt invitation to the tune of “I Surrender All”, before the evening closed nearly 2 hours after it had began.

It was a great night hearing some great singing by some great singers. All 4 vocalists are stellar vocalists in their own right, and putting them together in one quartet makes for a rich sound and one I’d love to hear again soon. I look forward to hearing them on a recording soon.