Joyful noise

Lawrence man wants to bring Southern gospel music and its message

Gene Reding vividly remembers, as a teenager, going to a Southern gospel convention in North Carolina.

He was from Michigan and had never heard that sort of music before.

“I heard this group, Hovie Lister and the Statesmen, and I was never the same after that,” he says.

Since then, Reding has been a fan of the tight harmonies and biblical message of the Southern gospel sound. But living in Kansas, he often has had to hit the road to attend concerts and festivals featuring the music.

So Reding, 73, decided to organize a concert of his own, bringing in the regionally known New Horizons band from Lebanon, Mo., and the Sound Advice Quartet from Topeka.

The groups will perform at 7 p.m. today at First Church of the Nazarene, 1470 N. 1000 Road. Pre-concert music by Robert Reding, Gene’s son, begins at 6 p.m.

Reding hopes this is the start of a Southern gospel movement in Lawrence.

“I get a personal message out of it,” he says. “It’s just as good as the first time I heard it.”

The sound

Southern gospel music, also sometimes referred to as country gospel, often includes four-part male harmonies with piano accompaniment, though there are many variations on that theme.

Gene Reding grew up listening to Southern Gospel music of groups like the Blackwood Brothers and The Statesmen. He still loves to play his old LP's but he is taking his lifelong love a step further.Reding is organizing a concert Saturday and hopes to bolster interest in the gospel music scene.

Think the Oak Ridge Boys, only singing less about “Elvira” and more about Jesus.

It’s called Southern gospel to differentiate it from the other form of gospel music, traditionally black gospel choirs.

Big-time stars in the genre have included the Blackwood Brothers, the Statesmen and the Speer Family.

“I grew up in the Ozarks, and Southern gospel was the only gospel,” says Ray Atkinson, a Lawrence resident and a fan of the music. “It’s the foundation. I think Southern gospel was some of the foundation of the heritage of this country.”

He sums up his love for the music this way: “It’s sincere music about Jesus Christ.”

But he admits it’s sometimes difficult to be a fan living in a northern state.

“Sure it is,” he says. “It’s larger in the South, anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, more in the Bible Belt.”

Danny Rhoades has noticed that split in his 39 years of performing in New Horizons, the group performing tonight in Lawrence.

“The farther north I go, it seems like you find people who haven’t heard it for years,” he says. “A lot of the music in their churches has become more contemporary. There’s an older population who heard the style of music when they were younger.”

Rhoades admits Southern gospel isn’t exactly radio-friendly in today’s music world.

“There are a lot of people in this section of the country who never heard it,” he says. “It’s not on the MTV, that’s why.”

Rhoades says he thinks Southern gospel is deeper than the more popular contemporary Christian genre.

Southern Gospel concert

  • Who: The New Horizons and the Sound Advice Quartet
  • When: 7 p.m.; pre-concert music by Robert Reding, 6 p.m.
  • Where: First Church of the Nazarene, 1470 N. 1000 Road
  • Admission: Free, but free-will offering will be accepted

‘Not so easy’

“This music doesn’t repeat itself over and over and over like the contemporary music,” he says. “It’s not so easy to do this kind of music. You can’t play the same part and take one chord on the guitar and all sing the same thing. You don’t read it off a screen on the wall.”

‘From the heart’

For Reding, who is retired from Hallmark Cards, tonight’s concert is a bit of a test.

“We’ll know (tonight) whether it’s liked, by when we pass the offering plate and whether people show up,” he says. “Where it leads, we don’t know. It depends on whether Lawrence accepts it.”

He’s hoping the concert goes over well – in part because he doesn’t want to hit the road for concerts, in part because he wants to share his love for the music and in part because of the message the music contains.

“Gospel music has to be sung from the heart,” he says. “You have to believe in the music you’re singing. Is it entertaining? Yes, there has to be some of that to hold an audience.

“But it touches people’s hearts, too.”