Smith, White, and Fairchild - Love Never Fails, CD Review

Aug

2003

Smith, White, and Fairchild - Love Never Fails

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Label: Daywind Music Group
Producer: Ricky Skaggs
Song Titles: “Secret Place,” “Where Angels Fear To Tread,” “Closer To Home,” “Fight On,” “Ever Near,” “Reach For The Scars,” “Trouble Me No More,” “In Gethsemene,” “He’s Alive,” “Love Never Fails,” and “Walking Through The Fire”

Country music stalwarts Connie Smith, Sharon White, and Barbara Fairchild combine their vocal gifts for Love Never Fails. This distinguished trio holds a number of individual accomplishments including White’s participation in the O Brother, Where Art Thou? phenomenon, Smith’s star status in the 1960s and 70s, and Fairchild’s stint with Heirloom.

Producer Ricky Skaggs has put together a basic country sound for this project. The music is very much in the background, with a focus on the vocals. This helps the listener pay attention to the harmony and the lyrics.

“Secret Place” is an easygoing tune with some steel guitar accompaniment. The lyrics ask God to “hide me in your secret place.” “Where Angels Fear To Tread” gives the angels’ point of view on God’s throne room. “Closer To Home” describes the journey of life, and how each day is one more day closer to heaven. “Love Never Fails” has a Singing Cookes 3/4 time feel.

After five rather slow numbers, “Reach For The Scars” steps up to a lukewarm medium pace. Track seven ("Trouble Me No More") finally, at last, picks up the tempo to a level that could be arguably called “fast.” Before it’s all over “He’s Alive” and “Walking Through The Fire” are added to give the project a little bit more excitement. The lyrics are well written and interesting to hear on the slower numbers, but putting five draggy songs at the beginning of a CD tends to put the listener to sleep.

My rating is high for lyric selection and graphic design. Vocal arrangements, performance and production quality range from moderate to high depending on the song. Overall unique elements and difficulty get a moderate to low rating. Pacing gets a solid F. That system averages out to an overall rating of 3 stars for Love Never Fails.

Rating: 3 Star Rating

Reader Comments

I love these ladies. They sound awesome together. I agree about the tempo though. They need more uptempo. Stand out tracks are Fight On, Through The Fire, and Where Angels Fear. I think they would have been wiser to have chosen some classics for their audience. I am sure that your country music fan and non gospel fans might think this is to deep for them. Familiarity would have been a plus in that respect. But Gospel fans will respect the fact they didn't record Amazing Grace and such as most country artists do when recording a gospel project. I hope they do another project but include a varity of tempos.

Commented by Larry Ferguson On 08/17/2003

WOW! What a fantastic album with exquisite harmonies from three of the finest vocalists out there. I cant believe the reviewer only gave this album three stars while giving 5 stars to cookie-cutter groups such as the Booth Brothers, The Crabb Family, and Gold City. The majority of the tracks are slower songs, but that is only so that the harmonies can be featured. The harmonies are often lost with uptempo numbers. I was shocked to see that Ann Downing was a co-writer on "Secret Place", that song would have definately been a plus on Ann's CD, but Im sure she could not compare to the Trio version presented here. Standout tracks for me are Secret Place, Closer To Home, Fight On, In Gethsemene, and Love Never Fails. This CD is 5 stars and whole lot more! Lets hope these three ladies give us a follow-up album!

Commented by Chris Barnes On 08/17/2003

Chris, judging from your web site, you are truly a "country" music fan, however, for Southern Gospel Music fans, David's three stars is a very fair rating. It is very difficult for three soloists to get together and blend as well as those groups who do it everyday. Your prejudices show when you call great groups like the Crabb Family, Gold City, and the Booth Brothers, cookie-cutter groups.
It's fine that you love country music, but don't put down SG artists while trying to uplift country artists

Deon Unthank
SoGospelNews.com
My Blog

Some people are like Slinkys… Not really good for anything, but they
still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs - Author Unknown

Commented by On 08/18/2003

It would also be nice if Chris would get his facts straight. I didn't give the Crabb Family 5 stars. I gave them 3 stars on the review I wrote of _#1 Hits Live_. I put a comment under the review of _The Walk_ saying that I would give it 4 1/2 stars if I were writing the review, but I didn't write that review. I haven't written any Gold City reviews lately.

Commented by On 08/18/2003

I do like Southern Gospel artists and of course I love Country artists. But that is not the issue here, the issue is quality. You mentioned blending in your response, I assure you that Sharon White can sing circles around any of your conventional Southern Gospel artists out there when it comes to harmony. A quality is recording is just that, a quality recording, no matter what artist is singing it. As far as southern gospel goes look at Dottie Rambo, Vestal Goodman, The Isaacs, Jesse Dixon, etc... now that is quality, not the plethera of wannabe groups that are out there today. If you dont like people uplifting country, then maybe the Crabb Family should stay off the Opry, with their pre-prepared tracks, they dont really belong anyway. Just my two cents worth.

Commented by Chris Barnes On 08/18/2003

I broke this down in the review, but didn't go into great detail . . .

Lyrics - As interesting and inspiring as any lyrics you'll hear.
Graphic design - Very nice cover. It never hurts when there's attractive women in a photo.
Vocal arrangements - Most of the vocal arrangements were very straightforward. Nothing wrong with that, but some key changes, different chords, etc. would have made it a bit more interesting on some songs.
Vocal Performance - All three of these ladies sing very well, but on one hand, they weren't really pushing themselves like Vestal or Jessy Dixon, and on the other hand, they weren't making it sound oh so easy like, say, Anne Murray or Lily Fern Weatherford. That's why I went with "moderate to high" rather than high.
Production Quality - Now come on. You can't honestly tell me that this CD has the polish or complexity of Gold City's _Walk The Talk_ or the Booth Brothers self titled release. Ricky Skaggs is a great musician, and I own quite a few of his CDs with Kentucky Thunder, but he's no Lari Goss, Michael Sykes, or Wayne Haun in the studio. These guys do it all the time. That's why their stuff sounds so slick. You seem to prefer your music with a more "raw" quality, nothing wrong with that . . . but Skaggs' own _Soldier Of The Cross_ or _Big Mon_ or anything else he's done recently has had more attention to detail in the studio than this CD.
Unique Elements - There's nothing that really sets this CD apart. It's basically good quality, but there's not much I could point to and say it's different or unique. I wouldn't go so far as to use your term of "cookie cutter" to describe this CD.
Difficulty - Frankly, you could go to just about any moderate sized country church and find a trio that could sing this music. I'm not saying they'd do it as well as Smith, White, and Fairchild by any stretch, but they could sing it. A couple of songs are exceptions, but by and large, that's how I rated the difficulty level of this CD.
Pacing - I love slow songs and I love fast songs. If I were putting this CD together using the same songs, I'd have put them on the CD in a different order. That's all. You simply don't put your five slowest songs first if you want to retain most listeners. You could have tossed a dice or drawn straws to put these song on this CD in random order and you'd have had much better pacing than they offer.

Commented by On 08/18/2003

In case you didn't understand the first time, I'll restate it. Your prejudice of country music is showing, however, your degrading of Southern Gospel groups on a Southern Gospel message board only serves to lessen the quality of your view in the eyes of the rest of the people on these boards.
Nobody has brought attention to "country" except you, by degrading SG while trying to put "country" on a pedestal.
When making statements like you have been making, you should ALWAYS preface them with "in my opinion".
Why are you so touchy about this review anyway?

Deon Unthank
SoGospelNews.com
My Blog

Some people are like Slinkys… Not really good for anything, but they
still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs - Author Unknown

Commented by On 08/18/2003

Seems like you sir have a large amount of prejudice against country artists. Could it be because they are making gospel recording superior to those by primarily Southern Gospel artists and they are scaring you?

Commented by Chris Barnes On 08/18/2003

Well, Chris, two of the three reviewers for this web site have agreed with the rating. As one who has been involved in SG for many years, I will stick with my opinion of this CD. Southern Gospel is the greatest music in the world, and NOTHING about it scares me. Just because it is country, does not make it better than SG.

Deon Unthank
SoGospelNews.com
My Blog

Some people are like Slinkys… Not really good for anything, but they
still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs - Author Unknown

Commented by On 08/18/2003

WOW! Tension is in the room. As I said I think a better song selection would have made this a stronger CD. I do think the harmonies are incredible. I don't think Chris means any harm...I think he was just stating his oppinion. And it seems that both sides are taking offense at each other over taste. Chris comes to a lot of Dottie Rambo's concerts and is a super nice guy. I think he enjoys southern gospel just holds it to a higher standard maybe. I do have to say that as a producer I think Ricky Skaggs is incredible...maybe this isn't his best production but he has produced some great albums.

Commented by Larry Ferguson On 08/18/2003

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