Hey Yall..

[southerngospel]

Just signed up and glad to be here.


I am the pastor of an Apostolic church in Vero Beach, Fl., where I was born and raised (5 generations).

I have played music all my life, beginning with bass guitar when I was just a kid. I took an old flattop, took off the first two strings and made it in to a "bass" (lol). I also played a trumpet, trombone (1st chair concert and jazz band), and baritone in high school. I played second trombone in a professional Glenn Miller type band for a couple of years while in high school. It was fun!

My senior year in high school I began to concentrate on the bass guitar (I had an Ampeg bass and a cough..Earth..cough amp) playing mostly late 60s and early 70s rock. In the mid to late 70s I began to play Eagles, Marshall Tucker, Asleep at the wheel genre, and then on into country music. During this time I picked up the fiddle and it became my main instrument.

In 1978, I pretty much left off music and joined the FCA and PRCA (then RCA) rodeo circuit. For the next 5 years I rode both bulls and bareback broncs. In the summer of 1981, a week before the Okeechobee Labor Day PRCA rodeo event, I was called to buck out some broncs to see if they were good enough for the show.. well, one wasn't.

He was a roan. When he came out of the chute he bucked for a few hops, but when I began to pull the spurs over his shoulders, I scared him (he was a green one), and he quit bucking and lit out in a full gallop, outrunning the pickup men. Well, he wasn't caring where he was going, and had run out of arena (it ran longways), and was about to bust directly into the end chutes (which would have probably killed us both). So I bailed.

He was probably doing about 40-45 mph. I hit the dirt wrong and broke my back in three places. Tried riding again after I healed up, but just didn't have the looseness in my back and hips needed to stay up top. So I clowned for a couple of years and then retired completely.

Then I became a Holy Roller. 1984. Back to music... Picked the fiddle back up. Pentecostal music was still kinda country flavored then. Met up with a bunch of black preacher's kids that were all musicians, and began to play bass with them in their style. One taught me to play the B3 (black gospel style).

So mainly, now I play the B3 in church (I have a 61 cherry B3 with two 122 leslies). On the side, I am starting again to play the bass in a country/southern gospel genre.

I have a Peavey Cirrus 6, which I play with my black preacher friends, and a Geddy Lee Fender Jazz for the country stuff. I just ordered a YBA200 Traynor with cabinet. Both the Geddy and the Traynor I decided on from the research done on this board.

Now before you all hate me for being a preacher.. I have never taken a dime in my 20 years of ministry. Not one cent. On the contrary, I've payed IN. I worked for both the USPS and a defense contractor as an IT professional until I "retired" in January. God has blessed me, and I never could have felt right living off of other men and women's labor. I 've worked since I was 14, and moved out on my own at 17. Always made my own way. So there. That's that.

Again, Glad to be here!

Gordon Williams

[Hawkeye]

Welcome Southern Gospel. I too play in church in our Praise & Worship team, own a YBA200 which I usually don't take out too much. Have a couple of Fender Jazz guitars Deluxe MIA and MIJ fretless and also have a Cirrus V. I also play in a jazz ensemble.

Please Do not apologize for being a preacher on this board and certainly don't think you are somehow not entitled to earn a living by preaching and being in the ministry. If Paul the apostle could do it, you can too.

Blessings.

[southerngospel]

Hey Hawk..

thanx for the kind words. Just that there has been so much abuse and manipulation by so many preachers. I've tried my best to not give any appearance of such. Hey.. at least I get to preach like it is.. they cant threaten to take my paycheck away. http://www.talkbass.com/forum/images...olors/wink.gif


What kind of praise stuff do yall do? Contemp? And aint the YBA a hoot? I really love it. I am using the cabinet that goes with it, and it seems ok. For my purposes now, doing southern gospel, I really dont want a real midrangey sound. So the 15 and two 10s probably gives me a more bottomy sound than I'd get from a cabinet of 10s.. you think?

[southerngospel]

hmmm...

why did a link to the html for the winky thing show up?

[southerngospel]

"also have a Cirrus V. I also play in a jazz ensemble"

Meant to say.. I cannot think of a better electric bass for jazz than a Cirrus. My Cirrus 6 is the smoothest playing bass I've ever held.. at any cost. I kind of wish I'd went with a 5 instead of a six at times. Better playing IMO, and you get the B string, which is what it was all about.

I did have a TL-5 that I liked nearly as well, and in one respect was better: it had a toggle switch to go either passive or active. I liked the choice. Plus, if your battery happened to fail you could switch to passive and not miss a beat.

Now, I'm trying to remember, but I believe on a Dynabass (4 string) I had, they even had a separate snap compartment that held the battery. On the TL-5 and the Cirrus, it is a pain to change the battery(ies) on the TL-5/Cirrus. I wish they had that little separate snap compartment, and not behind the many scewed plate that covers the electronics.

[bassteban]

Hey, Southern-
Typed-in links will do that unless you 'disable' the parse function- look under 'additional options' when posting.
As for hating, while feelings & opinions themselves cannot be governed, actual post content can. TB is pretty good w/regard to policing it's rules. No disrespect or something like that- read the rules(guess I ought to as well ).
Sounds like you've had some great opportunities as a player. Again I say, welcome brother.

[southerngospel]

thanx for the welcome bro..

And thnx for the tip on turning the parsing off. This place seems like a real nice neighborhood.

[Hawkeye]

Hi Southern, In answer to your question: At King Bible Church (north of Toronto, ON) we play pretty much 1/2 and 1/2 from the hymnbook and from the contemporary collection. My son-in-law leads the worship team and he did some stats on last year's songs. Apparently we sang 99 modern P&W songs and 90 hymns. That's nearly 200 titles. I guess we played more songs than I thought.

The oldsters really like the hymns, the young folks really are into the more modern choruses (as this geezer is too) and the congregation really loves it when we do something a little country / southern gospel sounding. Our Newfie guitarist is very good at this style so we let him indulge himself every once in a while and the folks in the congregation really warm up to it.

In my set-up the Lakland 55-01 gives me more of an old-school sound and my Cirrus V is the more articulate and focused-sounding because of the maple fretboard. To borrow from the eastern religions, a little bit of "yin and yang". If I was told I only could have one bass though, it would be my Lakland.

I don't actually take the YBA200 out much. I've used it on one wedding gig and that's it. I like the flexibility of the GBE600's sound-shaping capability into my Peavey 115 BVX BW for church. That being said though, I think I might bring the Traynor and my Fender Jazz this week just to go retro. Gotta change it up from time to time.

I think you're right on the sound character of the 1520 cabinet. Some have voiced the concern that it doesn't have enough midrange to cut through for rock, but that's not my thing anyway. It sounds like a good match for the styles you're playing. Plus, I just thing you get a lot of bang for your buck with that cab.
God Bless.

[southerngospel]

Sounds like you guys got some great stuff going on.. and you are right.. it's a tuff act to balance things between the older and younger saints.

While we play mostly southern gospel, we do spice it up with black bluesy stuff too.

Every so often we throw in a contemporary piece. This really has a great effect. Playing mostly southern gospel really allows for contemporary to be held in store for those special moments, and thus really has a powerful response.

I guess it's the same way when you guys play the occasional SG tune. Variety is the spice of life, eh?

God Bless.