February 1983 – A Look Back
This month let’s take a look back 42 years at the world of southern gospel music as it was in February of 1983. As our guide, we’ll use the Singing News, southern gospel’s leading publication since 1969.
Notice I did not say ‘Singing News Magazine’. That is because, here in February 1983, it’s still a newspaper. The magazine format would debut just a few months later in May.
The main ‘headline’ for February of ’83 is “CBS-Priority Creates RiverSong Records”. RiverSong would later be acquired by the Benson Company and be a leading force in southern gospel music well into the 1990s. The first group to sign with the new label were certainly no strangers to southern gospel fans: the Cathedral Quartet. In fact, they were still enjoying the success of their very first number one song, “Step Into The Water”. That song would spend nine months at a row at number-one, and soon be voted ‘Song of the Year’ for 1983.
The Cathedrals debut album for RiverSong would be a live recording at the Cobb County Civic Center in Marietta, Georgia, on January 28th and 29th. Live In Atlanta would produce a song that would forever be associated with their lead singer, Glen Payne, “We Shall See Jesus”.
I mentioned music charts, and so I think it’s worth noting that the February ’83 issue of Singing News features four different charts: Gospel, Contemporary, Inspirational/MOR, and the overall Top 40 Chart. It’s no secret that, for many years, Singing News covered many genres of Christian music, not just southern gospel. But as the Contemporary Christian music (CCM) industry was rapidly growing, Singing News would soon shift its focus to exclusively southern gospel. (CCM Magazine had already been in circulation for quite a few years). But, here in February of 1983, Singing News ran a story on Christian rock group Petra welcoming a new drummer, Louis Weaver, and one could find that month’s concert schedules for Sandi Patti, Petra, Dallas Holm & Praise, and Andrus, Blackwood & Company.
In other news, Canaan Records was announcing their very first two-hour radio special: the “Canaan Country Connection”. Hosted by Paul Heil of the long-running syndicated program “The Gospel Greats”, “Canaan County Connection” would feature visits with a number of artists on the Canaan roster, including the Cathedrals, Goodmans, Florida Boys, Nelons, Wendy Bagwell and the Sunliters, and the Lewis Family. (On a personal note, I am very fortunate to have a copy of this program in my archives – you’ll find practically no mention of it anywhere else).
A few other notes for February 1983:
A national study had recently found that cassette tapes were outselling vinyl records. This trend, of course, would continue well into the 1980s. In fact, Sparrow Records was designing a special display for Christian bookstores to highlight the portability of cassette tapes. Some of the last southern gospel LPs would be pressed in 1990, but some record companies would still furnish radio stations with 45 rpm singles as late as 1992.
The classifieds section included a listing for “Aerobic Jubilation”. Yes, there are a handful of Christian aerobics albums released during throughout the 1980s. DaySpring records had their popular “Firm Believer” series. There you could work out to songs by the Imperials, Amy Grant, Al Green, and Leon Patillo. And yes, there was even a southern gospel Aerobics album, just one. In 1985, Kelly Nelon Thompson gave us “Body Light”, featuring workouts to songs by the Nelons (and, um, yes, I just so happen to have a few of these albums in my collection).
Looking back, 1983 was a bit of a ‘transitional’ time for gospel music. The term ‘southern gospel’ would become more commonplace as the industry sought to differ itself from the ever-growing Contemporary Christian music industry. Singing News would slowly turn its attention more towards southern gospel over the coming years, before becoming an exclusively southern gospel-focused publication by 1987.
