Is the Crist Family Singing Again
The New Speer Family performed at Sand Bound Baptist Church in May. The group got together in 2018 as Brian Speer wanted to keep the songs of his legendary family going. From left are Brian Speer, Allison Speer, Ben Waites and Mike Allen.
(Annotation: This article, by John Herndon, originally appeared in the June edition of SGN Scoops magazine.)
Past John Herndon, KentuckySings.com
Brian Speer only knew he needed to get dorsum on stage.
It didn't matter that it had been 36 years since he stopped traveling with his legendary family. It didn't affair that he actually didn't know what direction he would have or who would sing with him. He only knew he needed to keep The Speer Family legacy alive.
"After all of Brian'southward people were gone, he woke up one day and said, 'I retrieve nosotros need to do a quartet,'" Brian'due south wife, Allison Speer, says. "Information technology shocked me! We had never talked nigh information technology and had never discussed it."
Just something had been burning in Brian's heart e'er since his uncle, Ben Speer, and his aunt, Rosa Nell Speer-Powell, the final surviving members of The Speer Family unit, died in 2017. He knew someone should carry on the legacy of the Southern Gospel pioneers who were active from 1921-1998.
With Allison, who has had a successful solo ministry building for 35 years, fully on board with the idea, the New Speer Family was built-in, outset performing terminal summer in Lawrenceburg, Tenn.
We caught up with The New Speer Family earlier their concert at Sand Bound Baptist Church building in primal Kentucky, less than an hour's drive from Allison's childhood home of Parksville.
"I had been traveling with Allison and running the sound. I manage the ministry," says Brian, who traveled with the original Speer Family from 1977-1982 earlier enrolling at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville. "I really never had any desire to go back on stage. I think the Lord only moved in me and used the gamble of losing this heritage in music to prompt me to try to bring information technology back."
Brian Speer had been off the road 36 years when he decided to revive the Speer Family music with The New Speer Family unit.
It was a dream to revive the legacy of gospel classics such equally "Heaven's Jubilee," "Sweeter Each Solar day," and "I Never Shall Forget The Solar day." All are included on The New Speer Family'southward inaugural album, appropriately named "A Singing Heritage."
"God was working this new matter in Brian," Allison says. "He didn't want to be on phase. When I would sing, I would beg him to please come up upwards and practise just one vocal with me. He plays guitar, plays a little piano, just he didn't want to do either. He didn't want to be up forepart. He wanted to be on the soundboard. And he was very content at that place."
He was content until he came to grips with the realization that The Speer Family influence on gospel music could be lost.
From their farm in Gravel Switch, Ky. — "Nosotros don't desire to sound likewise loftier-falutin,' so nosotros say we are in the suburbs," Brian quips. — Brian and Allison Speer went to piece of work.
"I had asked every group in Southern Gospel music to let me join somehow," Allison smiles. "I asked every quartet, every gospel group because I wanted to sing with somebody else. Information technology just never did piece of work out.
Allison Speer shares some fun stories during a concert at Sand Spring Baptist.
"The beginning thing we said was 'Who are we going to get to sing with us?' The Speers always had at least iv and about of the time five or six singers. Then how are nosotros going to accomplish annihilation musically with just the two of u.s.a.?"
They chosen Ben Waites, a Louisiana native who had never traveled with a group before just had been singing solo for nearly 18 years despite just turning xxx in late May.
Waites credits his grandfather, who sang gospel regionally, with turning him toward the music he loves. "We were watching The Cathedrals' adieu celebration at the Ryman (Auditorium)," Waites says. "The camera panned the audience and my grandpa saw Ben Speer. He said Ben Speer has (the Stamps-Baxter) School of Music in Nashville and you ought to go. 2 years later, I was 13 and went to my first one."
Allison and Brian Speer noticed. "He came every year," she says. "He was very adamant to learn this matter chosen music. We loved him inside and out. We loved his eye, his vocalism and his conclusion."
The Speers too reached out to gospel music veteran Mike Allen, a bass who had traveled with Allison on the Gaither Homecoming Series. He jumped at the chance.
Veteran bass Mike Allen delivers a smooth solo at Sand Bound.
Each of the singers connected their solo ministries. "We thought it would be something we would practice a few times a yr and have a little fun with, only it has turned out to be much more than that," Brian Speer says.
The journey began in the summer of 2018 in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., where G.T. "Dad" Speer moved his family afterwards taking a job with the James D. Vaughn Music Company in 1934.
The New Speers take been decorated ever since, despite an unusual travel organization. Brian and Allison Speer alive in central Kentucky while Allen and Waites live in Nashville, three hours away. Waites was as well built-in with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, ordinarily called "AMC," a condition that decreases flexibility in the joints. Waites is bars to a wheelchair and his married woman, Natalie commonly drives him to shows.
Brian Speer says the group makes the arrangement work. There is no tour autobus and the singers come across somewhere forth the mode. "If we are going to Florida, we might run into in Chattanooga," Brian says. "If nosotros are going north, we might come across in Louisville. We work information technology out."
Ben Waites impressed Brian and Allison Speer with his want to become a gospel vocaliser. He is the atomic number 82 in The News Speer Family.
Working it out is a good way to draw The New Speer Family's approach to the classics. The concert at Sand Spring was strongly influenced by the Speer legacy and moved what Brian called a "receptive and open" crowd with a rousing version of the Gaither classic, "The King is Coming."
"The Speer Family was the first to record that song," Brian says. "Every song we did tonight, except 'It is Well With My Soul' was recorded by The Speer Family unit." With Waites soloing, "Information technology is Well" brought the Th night oversupply to its feet for an extended round of adulation and appreciation.
"A Singing Heritage" is filled with Speer standards. The liner likewise contains a photo of the Speer Family that looks to be from the 1930s and includes a photo of The Speer Family's 1965 album of the aforementioned name, released on the Heart Warming label.
The irony in resurrecting the Speer heritage is that Brian Speer'south 5-twelvemonth journeying with his family is the only directly connection to the past. His wife'due south introduction to gospel did non include the Speers or nigh of the other Southern Gospel greats.
"I was raised here in central Kentucky," Allison remembers. "Nosotros got our music from WJMM radio in Lexington and it was non a Southern Gospel station. It was contemporary. I am a child of the contemporary music of the 70s and 80s. Reba Rambo was a soloist then. Sandi Patty came along. Steve Green. Larnelle (Harris, like Allison, a native of Boyle Canton, Ky.), Amy Grant, Twila Paris.
"I was not familiar with The Speer Family until I started going to Nashville to do music in that location."
Brian and Allison Speer during the New Speer Family concert at Sand Spring Baptist.
Allison began recording for Impact, a sis characterization to Homeland Records, which was producing The Speers' albums. And in the studios, she met Brian Speer, a Homeland auditor.
"We began to date," Allison says, "so my life went completely downhill after that."
Brian, sitting adjacent to his married woman, erupts with laughter. Allen and Waites join in and share some of their own barbs.
The laughter is plumbing equipment as The New Speers would incorporate some of Allison's famed comedy into a nighttime of heartfelt worship. She tells stories of growing up in rural Parksville. With numerous family members and lifelong friends in the audience, she transforms her powerful phonation to 1 sharing about her grandmother'south lessons near baking pies.
Merely she likewise takes time to offer some commentary on current events and challenges the audience to bolster its faith in Christ, and then live accordingly in a world she believes to be growing more than hostile to those who live the Christian faith. She reminds the audience of the powerful messages in the traditional hymns and gospel classics.
That passion prompted Allen to have Brian and Allison Speer'due south invitation to join their new venture. The erstwhile Marine had been a Speer Family fan since meeting Ben Speer more than 35 years ago. "Ben and the whole family, Faye, everybody, just welcomed me into the family like I was one of their own. I have been a Speer ever since, in my mind."
Through the Gaither Homecoming serial, where Ben Speer served as musical director, Allen became even closer to The Speer legacy. He relishes the thought of presenting Southern Gospel history to a mod audience.
"There are so many songs," Allen smiles. "So many songs I would beloved to hear Brian say 'We are going to exercise this song and that song.'"
For now, The New Speer family is juggling several different roles. Brian and Allison realized they had few reasons to stay in Nashville afterwards Ben Speer's death, so to exist near her mother, they bought a subcontract nigh her childhood abode. They plan on a summer move into a new home on the property.
The New Speer Family during the concert at Sand Bound Baptist.
Allison and Brian plan to continue her solo ministry while Waites, who serves as a vocal coach in Nashville, and Allen besides take solo ministries.
However, a venture that figured to be a few dates a yr has blossomed into much more than. Brian says the group has done between 30 and 40 concerts in addition to recording its offset CD. A glance at newspeerfamily.com shows calendar filling with dates ranging from Florida to New Bailiwick of jersey to Texas.
Those dates are opportunities but also challenges not lost on the singers.
"The basic thought for mie is that we can somehow, even remotely, can continue The Speer Family name and do it justice," Allen says. "I mean, they were then amazing that to even attempt to copy what they have done would be impossible. But to just bring dorsum or continue that name and do it justice and do what they originally tried to do in the beginning and that was to spread the gospel."
Waites that legacy and purpose. "Through that vessel, I hope to accomplish what they accomplished in spreading the gospel and give people the opportunity to know Christ as their personal savior."
During The Speer Family's amazing run, Thou.T. Speer was known for stopping songs to share a testimony, then resume the music past saying, "Let the vocal go on."
The New Speer Family is letting the songs keep once more.
Source: https://kentuckysings.com/2019/07/16/new-speer-family-striving-to-let-the-songs-go-on-again/
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