I trust everyone had a great Memorial Day….and while we are talking about Memorial Day, I believe it would be in order to thank every family, every wife and child, every husband, every mom, dad, sister, brother…everyone who ever saw their family member head off to serve this great country. Everyone who, with pride, hugged their friend and watched their plane until it was completely gone from the horizon as they headed to foreign lands securing freedom all over the world. Thank you to the families….thank you to the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who protect this great land, and a special thanks to those who, especially on Memorial Day, we recognize for the life they laid down. God bless and keep you all and may we never take for granted the service you guys and gals so freely gave and continue to give.

Had a good service at Union Hill this past Sunday…it was way too cool to see the house packed out like it was. Great to see all the usual suspects there…Jess’ family, his mom, dad, brothers, sister, uncles, and aunts (especially the aunts….hey ladies!!). Had a few unexpected visitors….like my mom and Granny. Good to see Granny out and about. She’s in her early 90’s and is extremely involved in the NBA Playoffs right now. Scott asked her if she watched the game on Saturday night and she replied “the Pistons were losing so I just went to bed. Had to get a good night’s sleep so I could stay up tonight and watch the Lakers”. Granny’s dream NBA Final would be Detroit and the Lakers….with the series going to 6 games at least and the Lakers pulling it out. Any team though that has any ex-Kentucky ball players will do. Sorry…got side-tracked on sports (imagine that)…got to see lots or Ruby Wilson’s family there as well. Her nephew Dewayne Greer is a member at Union Hill….not ringing bells to you guys? Sorry…Ruby is our dear friend who recently lost her son to suicide and Dewayne presided over the funeral…and did an incredible job eulogizing a friend, family member, and fellow Christian. It was great to see so many of her family up at Union Hill, rallying around her and supporting her during this difficult time. Knowing what Lisa (my wife) recently went through with the loss of her mom…the time during the funeral is busy and your mind isn’t afforded lots of time to wander and ponder all the events…but once all of that is over and the visiting stops and life returns to what from this point forward will be called “normal”….reality hits hard. Mrs. Ruby is squarely in that deal right now and it was great to see her family bunch in around her and show her the love and support she needs. The service was really good….all except for allergies wearing me out (and a bit with Darrell). Always hate to see folks travel a good ways just to hear snorting, coughing, and wheezing through songs…but God knows what we need and I have learned to quit questioning. It does one thing for sure…keeps you humble and praying constantly. Appreciate all the folks at Union Hill coming out and look forward to every time we get to go back and share in their service. Oh…almost forgot to mention how good it was (as always) to see Darrell’s mom….”hey good looking, what’cha got cooking”??

How about some good news for this week? I’m always up for some nice, positive stuff. We’ve had folks ask for weeks what was going to be the “deal” with Scott. How long will he be staying with you guys? Who will be the permanent replacement for Marty? The wait is over folks…we are prepared to officially announce that (drum roll please…okay well, maybe a couple of fingers tapping on the desk in front of you will work) Scott Russell, after much prayer and discussion, has decided to accept the position as full time tenor for Called Out Quartet!! All joking aside, we could not be more pleased with how things worked out. It was a dark time when we found out that Marty was leaving, but in true “God” fashion…after we flailed around for a day or two and said stuff like “what will we do”… the answer presented itself, and the Lord revealed that if we would just trust in Him, all things would work for good. We talked to Scott and he agreed at the time to fill in until we settled on what we needed to do. Wasn’t long before we were all hinting and down right asking what his intentions were…and in looking back, I have to respect Scott for not doing the easy thing and immediately committing before he knew how things would go. He said we all needed to be prayerful and that the Lord would show us all what was the best thing for each of us and the group. Things progressed and Scott told us he felt led to be here…so here we are…officially Called Out Quartet now with Jess Birdwell lead, Darrell Collier baritone, Von Gaines bass, and welcoming Scott Russell as tenor.

I think I mentioned last week that we are finally finished with our new project…yet to be named. Perhaps we could start referring to it as “Project X” or something cool like that. Okay…maybe I’ve been watching too many movies lately with spies and such. Still….it has a nice ring. Alright…sorry, thought I might give you guys a brief list of some of the songs you might be interested to know will be on there. For those who have seen us live in the last three months, some of these titles will be no surprise at all. Why will they be no surprise? Well…cause, like kids, when we learn a new song, we have to run out and sing it! One we have been singing in services for years is “What A Day That Will Be”…and there should be no shock that a project of hymns will be securely anchored by that favorite of the group. We’ve been starting allot of our services lately with another from the new CD that’s an upbeat, fun song… “Living In Canaan Now”. Really having lots of fun with that one. A big favorite I have developed during this whole process is one that features Darrell… “Now I Have Everything”. Looking forward to getting it out there for everyone to hear and enjoy. Hope to have more details soon on a possible release date and maybe tease a few more of the songs. Found out this Sunday one is my Granny’s all time favorite hymn…scored a few brownie points there and didn’t even mean to!

We’ll be in Columbia, KY at Pickett’s Chapel Methodist this Sunday…it’s the church we within the group have affectionately referred to as ”the church you have to drive through 3 creeks to get to”. Let me explain…the church actually sits at the end of a super nice paved road with painted lines and everything and only goofs like us have to drive through any creeks to get to it. It’s truly a beautiful church sitting right in the midst of the hills of Kentucky. Problem for us was the first time we went we copied some directions down improperly and drove through some major backwoods country roads and got lost about 5 times before we finally found our way. Vowing not to let that happen again, we leaned on a cellphone navigator last year…that turned out to eventually take us right to the door….but did so by taking across hunting trails and through at least two if not three creeks. You laugh….but we were tripping out as we drove down this dirt road and caught up to (no exaggeration) a group of guys on four-wheelers cutting through the trails and creeks. They paused briefly to try and figure out what on earth a red 15 passenger van and trailer were doing in four-wheeler territory, then they went on about their business. They were no more surprised than we were I promise. We came out right at the church parking lot….in a cloud of dust. We opened up the trailer only to discover everything was coated (and I do mean coated) in a layer of dust. Took us months to clear that out. Got into the church and they enjoyed us recanting the tour we took of the countryside…for the second year in a row. Found out we were very close to the main highway and just took “the long and scenic” way…again. We are prepared this year! Anxious to prove we actually can get there on regular roads. I guess maybe third time will be a charm! Hope to see you guys there.

Have a great week and be sure welcome Scott as a full time member of the group next time you see him….and don’t forget to mark your calendars for Gatlinburg in November!!

Von and all the guys at CO4

So…what do you think of our new digs? Kind of rad isn’t it? Okay…so I’m not the hippest dude on the planet. I’m just excited. We have been wanting to change to the new “blog” style format of a web page for a long time. Our old website (and many current websites) are of the more traditional fixed page style. Isn’t that funny…15 years ago most folks didn’t have internet access, 20 years ago most folks had never heard of it, and I’m talking about web pages like they were Model T’s and Edsels. This new style is run by a software program called WordPress which is all the rage with web designers. It takes allot of the day to day design and update work out of the web guru and places it back with folks like us (hopefully). There will still be allot of learning to it, but hopefully we can make it more interactive and keep it fresher as time goes on. Lots of folks out there make neat add-on’s for these kind of sites and we are hoping to take advantage of some of that stuff once we get rolling.

For those who are not getting the update via email, please let us know. I bet I have found another 10 or 20 folks just this week who regularly keep up with us via the internet and yet didn’t know about the newsletter. The dead giveaway was when they asked what was going on with it. I’ve been trying in a weak way to explain the progression lately in those newsletters and when someone knew zero…I figured “ah-ha” they don’t get the updates. Email us at and let us know if you aren’t getting them at calledout@calledoutquartet.com . And by all means…folks who are getting them, please forward them to everyone you know. Down at the bottom you will find a spot where you can forward it and have us continue to keep those folks “in the loop”. Instead of you just hitting “forward” in your email program, if you use that we will have their email address and will be able to continue to send them. Getting the newsletter in too many different places? Had that happen to someone this week…they got it at work and at home. Just unsubscribe one if you want and you’ll still get the other.

Have I mentioned that we have finished work in the studio for our new CD? Didn’t think so. Had a great time this last session. As you can imagine, the task is daunting in the beginning to pick songs, find keys, make music tracks, and finally learn and sing them properly. Once you come down into the home stretch you get a little looser and then really loose. By the time we got to the last song we were laughing and having a big ol’ time…even Eddie Crook (our manager) was hawing it up a bit. Should be getting to approve the final mastered version of the songs in a few weeks and may be looking at July sometime for a release. Will keep everyone up to date there.

Enjoy the site and let us know what you think. Remember these words…work in progress. Hopefully it will just get better and better as we figure things out. Have a safe Memorial Day weekend and don’t spend your week’s paycheck at one gas station! Come see us at Union Hill…it’s Jess’ home church and I know he would love to see that bad boy filled up for Homecoming.

Von and all the guys at CO4