Well…the wonders of technology will never cease. I’m sitting here in the parking lot of my daughters school waiting for her to complete her tryouts for the varsity cheer squad…and low and behold I can rip some Wi-Fi!!|Had an awesome weekend last Saturday and Sunday…busy, but great none the less. Started with Saturday up in Hartsville, TN at Trousdale County High School. Hartsville…the “heart” of Tennessee…had to throw that in. Anyway…it was for a benefit in support of the Missionary Baptist Telecast that goes all over middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky. Pastor Mike Reid from Harvest Missionary Baptist Church in Hendersonville, TN kind of headed the whole deal up and corraled us a few months back. He also got our good friends Glory Bound, The Spurgeons (from Indiana), a bluegrass group who call themselves “Graball Grass” (named for a small town in middle Tennessee…they don’t literally go around and grab all they can), plus a group from the Lafayette area called The Pedigos. They raised over $6500 to support the outreach and I think a good time was had by all…so I’ll call that a blazing success!

Sunday morning was a gut check for me…got to sing for the first time since I became a member at my home church McFerrin. To add a little bit of pressure to the deal, our manager/producer/mentor Eddie Crook played the piano for us during the service…gulp! I know…he’s just a guy and the church is just full of people…but still. I know we wanted to make Eddie proud because he definitely has gone WAY out of the way to help us all along the way and it’s his church too. I think it went well….the spirit was definitely there which is always a wonderful thing. Appreciate the patience of all the folks there who have been so supportive of our group and for taking care of my wife and daughter while I’m gone. Did I mention that’s Scott’s church too?? H’s sung there MANY times though…no biggie for him.

Sunday afternoon we headed up to Bethpage to a church I hadn’t been to in years….Sulfur Fork. Many moons back I went to a revival effort there preached by their pastor Bro. Jerry Reynolds and my pastor at the time Bro. Tim Binion. They have made huge changes in that they have a brand new sanctuary that looks great. Had a good service and got to see an old friend Bro. Frank from Africa (don’t know how to spell or say Bro. Frank’s last name…sorry!). He sang a song with no accompaniment…I’ll Fly Away I think….and did a wonderful job.

Sunday night (that’s right…number 3 for the day) we headed over to Portland, TN to Mt. Pleasant General Baptist to round off a wonderful day. Had another great service that was very spiritual and also…I guess….sweet. After a long day it was neat to wind down at a church where we all feel so at home. Tried out some of the new songs on them…bless their hearts. We were going this week into the studio so we thought it was no time like the present to whip them out. Appreciate their infinite patience.

As mentioned, we went into the studio last night. Went great…got 4 songs done for the new “hymns” project. Don’t really have a name yet. Which reminds me…I downloaded some really rough cellphone pics to the photo gallery this week if you haven’t seen them yet. They were all “behind the scenes” at our last photo shoot with Kim Lancaster-Brantley. One of the pics is of a computer screen shot where Kim was messing around with one of
Darrell’s finer shots trying to convince us she had a great idea for the new CD cover. Thanks Kim….

This weekend we head out to new territory! We’ll be in the Camden, TN Saturday and on to western Kentucky for Sunday morning and Sunday night.This will be our first set of dates set up by our new booking agent Barbara Roach of Jubilee Music Artists . Excited about working with her and working with the churches she has set us up in coming soon.

Savannah just came out….so I’m going to find out how the tryout went. Hope you guys all have an awesome weekend and we will look for you out on the road!!

Von and the guys at CO4