Arthur Rice discusses his career with the Kingsmen, Squire Parsons and Redeemed, and the Kingdom Heirs, and his decision to move into church music.
Show Notes
Learn more about Trinity Baptist Asheville: https://www.tbcasheville.org/
Learn more about the Kingdom Heirs: https://kingdomheirs.com/
For more on Arthur Rice’s Kingsmen days, catch his recent episode on Behind the Crown.
Transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
Daniel (00:03)
Thank you for listening to Southern Gospel Journal. My name is Daniel Mount, and I’m joined today by Arthur Rice. Good evening.
Arthur (00:09)
Hello, good evening. How are you?
Daniel (00:11)
Pretty good, how about you?
Arthur (00:14)
Hello, good evening. How are you? I’m good, I’m good. I’m a little cold right now. I’ve been outside putting up Christmas decorations.
Daniel (00:21)
Could we start with your background, where you grew up, your testimony, and what first sparked your love for Southern Gospel music?
Arthur (00:26)
Sure. I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, born and raised there. And I grew up in a musical family. My mom and dad, my oldest sister sang as a trio. And then my dad sang in various quartets through the years. And so that’s kind of where my quartet life came from.
And my dad taught singing school, the old shape note singing. So that’s where that came in.
Something else that he did that I do a lot of now is recording. My dad kind of dabbled with that. And of course, in the 50s and 60s, it was a little different. There wasn’t a lot of recording studios around. So he had a four-track recorder that he recorded a lot of quartets and stuff. And so I’ve got some old recordings of – used to have, they’re long disintegrated by now – but I do have some copies of Rex Nelon and Ray Dean back in the 50s.
And so it’s pretty cool to see some of that stuff. So it’s funny: When I started working in the studio, I didn’t really think about it, but that kind of comes full circle. It’s funny how stuff like that happens.
So I grew up around music and around church. I’ve only heard one other person say this – Dianne Wilkinson, our mutual friend, said this one time. She said from an early age, she felt religious. And I think I really, from an early age, I felt that.
Looking back, I can see – I think God’s hand was on my life, even at an early age. And even way before I was saved, when I was seven – you know, like many of us here at revival – you go down and make a profession like everybody else. But I knew, and as the older I got, I knew that something wasn’t right.
But I still gravitated toward church and toward gospel music. Even when I got up in my teenage years and in high school, I started dabbling with a little bit of rock and roll and just playing. I’m a musician, so I kind of dabbled with some different music and playing with it. But I still gravitated toward church and music – gospel music, that sort of thing.
And then when I was 18 years old, the Lord convicted me and really showed me, you know what, you’re lost. So it was one of those deals.
I belonged to Trinity Baptist Church there in Asheville. I grew up at a different church, but when I was about 14, my mom started taking me there to get into the youth group. And my youth pastor was Ralph Sexton Jr. Ralph Sexton Sr. was the pastor, and Jr. was my youth pastor.
So that was about 1974, 75, somewhere around in there. And I was right at the beginning of his ministry also, really. In fact, he just celebrated his 50th year.
Daniel (03:23)
Okay.
Arthur (03:35)
And so that’s where he got his start as a youth pastor. And so I grew up in that church and around him.
And when I got into high school, I kind of got out of church a little bit. Well, I bumped into him at Kmart or somewhere, and he said, “Hey, I’m preaching a revival out close to you. I’d love for you to come and sing for me one night.”
So I said, “Sure.”
I’d let my hair grow out, you know. And like I said, I’d been dabbling with some country music and some rock and roll. But he is just the ultimate in showing grace and love, and invited me out.
So that Thursday morning, I woke up, man, just under conviction. And I knew. I thought, “Lord, if you’ll just let me live long enough to get to church that night,” you know. But he did.
And then I got saved that night at the revival. It was right before Thanksgiving, I was 18 years old. People say, well, how do you know? Well, there’s a change. And there’s definitely a change in your life and in your heart. And so from that point on, I got back in church.
But he’s just the ultimate in showing grace to people. It was God that put him right in my way that day.
And so then I started singing with a little group there in the church called the Gerald Payne family. We were kind of a regional group, but we had started traveling and getting out a little bit.
And so we sang with the Kingsmen, and that was the first time that Eldridge heard me sing. Now, at Trinity, I grew up with Squire Parsons, who went to our church. Ernie Phillips went to our church. Wayne Maynard went to our church. I mean, just about all the Kingsmen went to our church.
So I knew them and they knew me, and they knew that I sang and kind of knew my history. And Ray Dean Reese is my cousin. When he got out of service, my dad’s the one that got him started singing in quartet music. My dad taught him how to sing bass.
So we had a history there, and he knew me. But this time was the first time that Eldridge had heard me sing. And so it wasn’t too long after that he called and asked me if I’d be interested in singing with the Kingsmen. You know, kind of the rest is history. So that’s kind of my early years.
Daniel (06:20)
One other question on the early years, with different groups you were with, were you primarily a bass guitarist? Did you play other instruments? And did you sing a lot with the other groups?
Arthur (06:32)
It’s funny. I started playing bass guitar for my dad’s group when I was about seven years old. And then I sang, they would have me come and I would sing one or two songs. I had a super high voice, and I sung everything that Archie Watkins sang. So I loved it. I loved The Inspirations and Archie Watkins.
So then when I was about 14, my voice changed and dropped to the basement. Well, then I wanted to be a bass singer. But my dad wouldn’t let me sing bass. He’s like, I don’t need a bass singer. I need a lead singer. So he made me sing up.
But I started taking voice lessons when I was 14, right after my voice changed. My mom took me to a guy by the name of Julian Brookshire. He was from out of Juilliard.
Great, great teacher. One thing I loved about him is he didn’t try to change me. I sang the classics, but he didn’t make me try to go that way. He didn’t try to change my style – he just tried to help me.
It’s funny: Southern gospel and opera are very connected as far as singing goes, as far as breath control and tone placement, that sort of thing. If you listened to Pavarotti, he would’ve made a great quartet tenor. Tremendous.
So if you really pay attention to that, you can see the similarities to it. And so he was very good about that. So I took voice lessons for seven years, right after my voice changed when I was 14. So my mom took me every week. She drove me 30 minutes every week until I was old enough to drive myself. And I would go every week and take voice lessons. So that’s kind of where that started.
Daniel (08:33)
This is interesting! As he was doing voice lessons with you, did he classify you vocally as a tenor? Were you working on tenor repertoire? Because just to me, it seems like your tone sounds like you haven’t really switched into a falsetto or lighter head tones up to that B-flat or higher…
Arthur (08:55)
Yeah. You know, like I said, when my voice changed, it went from the top to the bottom. So he kind of started working me back up. It took a few years to get my voice back up.
By the end of it, after about four or five years, somewhere around in there, I had about a four-octave range – full voice. And then I could sing a C full voice before I ever got into my head tone, really. Starting with that early and on after my voice change really helped.
I can’t sing that low anymore, and probably can’t sing that high anymore. I don’t like to. The high – it’s a lot more work than it used to be when I was younger.
But he really did a great job of helping me with tone placements and crossovers, that sort of thing. Listening to Squire – love Squire – was one of my heroes. A lot of people used to say, “You sound similar to Squire.” Never intentionally set out to sound like him, but I think anytime you idolize somebody’s singing, you have a tendency to gravitate toward that.
I had two vocal heroes: Squire and Ronnie Milsap. And so, I think anytime you have a tendency, style-wise, to lean toward those tones.
But Squire had one of the best crossovers. You couldn’t hear when he went to head tone. I mean, it was almost unbelievable. That was kind of my goal. I wanted to emulate that and work on that. And he tremendously helped me with that.
Daniel (10:47)
Neat! All right. So moving on to the next set of questions. I love the Behind the Crown podcast from Josh Griffin and Brian Hudson. They recently interviewed you about your Kingsmen years. I don’t want to duplicate what they did too much, but there are a couple of things about the Kingsmen years I’d love to ask you about.
One of which is, how did you get picked to sing “A Place Where the Hungry Are Fed?” Was that going to be your feature all along, or do you know if they tried it on other vocalists first and then they were like, “Well, maybe we should have the bass guitarist try it out”?
Arthur (11:26)
You know, when I first went with the Kingsmen, I was very fortunate. I had some great songs. My first song was “Empty Vessel” off of an album called Game of Life. That was the first album that I was on. I sang it and sang a couple other songs.
And then when we started working on Better in Person, got “A Place Where the Hungry Are Fed.” Aileene Hanks wrote that song.
And Jim knew her. She wrote “In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions.” Great song. Great older song. I’m sure she’s written a whole lot of stuff, but that’s probably the two biggest songs, yeah, that stand out.
She wrote some stuff that some contemporary folks have had sung through in the 80s, I think. But Jim had known her from somewhere. And so I get to meet her one time and it was really cool. She was blind.
Daniel (12:27)
She was.
Arthur (12:32)
Yeah, she was blind. And it was really cool to get to meet her.
She did the demo. She was kind of like Dianne [Wilkinson]; she would play and sing her own demos. And she had this kind of a rough – almost a baritone voice for a lady but it was kind of scruffy. Real bluesy kind of thing.
And so I remember when we sang that. So it wasn’t too long after we started listening to it that Jim kind of pointed that to me and I kind of knew that that was going to be my feature for that album.
Daniel (13:09)
Neat! Just a funny thing from when he was introducing you on that album. He said that the first night you played and sang with the Kingsmen, he told the audience, if you did well, they’d buy you a suit. And then he said at the end, someone hollered, “Give him your suit. He sings better than you do.”
Now, do you have any recollection of your story? Is it true? Because I figure he could maybe elaborate and make a story a little better?
Arthur (13:29)
It actually happened! We really were in Alabama, and L.D. Fortenberry was the guy’s name.
It was actually before I started with the group. A month or so before that, Ernie asked me to go with them one weekend. This was after Eldridge had heard me.
And so Ernie asked me to go with him one week. It was just a short week – a two-day weekend. And so we went down to Alabama, just did two dates and came home.
And that night they had told Jim that I could sing and that sort of thing. Of course, Ray kind of helped with that. Jim actually let me come out and sing a song. I think they were actually talking about hiring me at the time.
And he made that comment. He said, we’re thinking about hiring this young man. He said, “he doesn’t have a suit.” It happened pretty much the way Jim said.
As soon as I got through, L.D. stood up in the back and said, “Give him your suit, he sings better than you!”
It wasn’t too long after that Wayne Maynard left and Eldridge called me. He called me on a Friday and he said, “Would you be interested in singing with the Kingsmen?” And I said, “Well, sure!”
For me, that was … I grew up, I cut my teeth on them. And we used to have a big console stereo and I would stack up records. And I didn’t like to get up and flip them. And so I would buy two of them and I would put them back to back and just stack them up.
And I had an instrument in on that, and I played my bass guitar. I would sit there for hours and just play every song back to back to back. So I knew everything that they had ever recorded.
So he called me on the Friday and I said, sure, thinking there’s no way. And he said, well, be in the office Monday morning if you’re interested.
So I went. I met him in his office about nine o’clock and he offered me the job. And two weeks later, I went on the road.
So I just loved it. I think it was because – we talked about this a little bit on the podcast – I think it was the age. You know, it was in my early 20s. I think at that time, time stands still. You know, it doesn’t pass like it does now that we’re older.
And I was only there five years, but it felt like a long time, you know. We we did a lot of stuff. We sang a lot of places. And just it’s a great, great experience all the way around.
Eldridge was a great guy to work for. The group – we never had a minute’s trouble. We loved what we did, and everybody loved what we did.
Daniel (16:29)
That’s neat. Yeah. So the other Kingsmen song I wanted to ask about was “I Sing Because.” And your version was the original recorded version of that song, right?
Arthur (16:39)
Yeah. Squire recorded it. And, you know, most of time when Squire recorded an album, that’s usually how he did. All of his pitches were off of an album. Yeah.
And so he had recorded it. He was with Benson at the time, and Benson Music, and he recorded “I Sing Because” pretty straight. And he sent it to us, and we recorded it pretty close to the way that he did it.
But he didn’t release it, we released it. You know, that was a big song.
Like I said, I was very blessed. I had some great songs while I was there. I was blessed with some great opportunities and some great songs.
Daniel (17:20)
So by the last year or two of your time with the Kingsmen, were you consistently singing “I Sing Because” almost every night, “A Place Where the Hungry Are Fed” almost every night, or between the two?
Daniel (17:38)
We didn’t have a consistent set list, but yeah. It’s a different time. And it’s like – it’s like there’s new songs out every day, it seems like with streaming and that sort of thing.
And it’s hard to – I think it’s the longevity of songs. It doesn’t last as long. I think that’s one reason there’s so many classics now out of the sixties and seventies, especially in those early radio days because it was just a different time.
You know, I wonder what – if time tarries, if the Lord tarries – in 40 years, what are gonna be the classics from our era? I don’t know what that would be, you know what I mean? It’s just a different kind of thing.
Daniel (18:47)
I have a theory. I have a theory, and I think the classics of this era of gospel music are because of what happens live as much as anything.
Like I don’t know if you’ve heard the Inspirations in the last six or nine months, but Wyatt was singing “A Sea of Forgetfulness” and the way audiences respond to that. I mean, it’s not a guarantee, but I think he might’ve found his signature song.
Arthur (18:49)
Yeah.
Daniel (19:11)
And if he stays on the road long enough and sings that long enough, I think people are going to be talking about that one 30, 50 years from now. I think it’s happening live, somewhat.
Arthur (19:17)
Yeah. I think you’re right. I think you’re right. And there are a few that come along that you go, like you said, “I think that’s your signature song.” But you don’t have as many of those as you do because you’re so pushed to get new material out nowadays, you know.
We were lucky to record one album a year. And then out of that album, we only sang maybe two or three songs off of it because you were still singing the hits from the last 10 years, stuff that people still wanted to hear.
But yeah, we sang just about every one of those every night. And then it got to the point where we put a medley together and say, here’s the verse of this and this and this and this. For three minutes, you just sing as hard as you could.
Daniel (20:09)
So moving on then, can you share the story behind joining Square Parsons and Redeemed?
Arthur (20:14)
Yeah when I left the Kingsmen – I really expected to die on the Kingsmen bus. I thought, I am through.
And it’s funny how the Lord works in your life. You don’t know what’s coming. You don’t know what’s around the bend. But you look back now and you see God’s hand on your life and see how He’s kind of moving you and molding you, and that sort of thing.
And you know, you don’t always get it right. Sometimes you turn left when you should’ve turned right. And you do the best you can.
People say, how do you stay in God’s will? I think that’s the mindset of, I’m trying my best and He works the rest of it out.
You may miss it, but He can turn a left into a right very quickly and get you back on the right trail, thankfully. So get you out of messes that we put ourselves in.
But I think it’s a mindset. Always acknowledge him and He will direct your path. And that’s kind of the way that I’ve lived my life. I learned that lesson very early from Ralph Senior, and a message – probably when I was 13 or 14 – and I’ve tried to live my life by that. And you don’t always get it right, but I try.
But I really thought that I would be with the Kingsmen forever. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he had a brain aneurysm and lived through it.
Looking back, he would have been fine. We’d probably just left him alone, he’d been fine. But we made him retire, which is the worst thing we could’ve done. The best thing – we could have just let him work, would have been great.
But we made him retire, and I felt like I should come off the road and kind of help with the family business.
And so I didn’t understand it at the time. But once it happened and I came off the road, I was like, well here I am. You know, Lord, what do you want me to do? You know, I’m just waiting on you.
And Squire called me and said, “Hey, would you be interested in singing with me and Ernie and Joe Fowler?” And I said, yeah, absolutely.
And so he said, “I can’t do a full-time thing.” He said, “What I want is I want to do about 30 dates a year with the quartet.” And he said, “I want to bring you in.”
And the thing with Squire is, people just love Squire. You know, they didn’t care who he brought with him. They just wanted him. So a lot of times he would do the first half, which is him. And of course he had so many great songs – my word. He didn’t need us. He just loved quartet music and he wanted some guys to sing it and with him. That’s the reason we were there.
And so we did some dates here and there, but just had a great time. And Squire and Ernie – they were just who they were, and just some of the funniest guys – funny guys to work with. Ernie was a prankster and Squire was a big comedian, but they were just a blast to travel with and sing with.
Daniel (23:47)
And they had depth too. Yeah. The spiritual depth. There are people who on the road singing gospel music who aren’t necessarily even Christians, but there is a – I’ve heard from so many people – just the sincerity that both of their faiths too.
Arthur (23:59)
Yeah, absolutely.
And then, of course, Squire also wanted the quartet to record his demos. He’d send them out. The one album we did, it’s got “I Go to the Rock” on it. In fact, we did 10 songs on it. I think nine of the 10 of them were cut either by Kingsmen or Gold City or somebody.
That was a great album. Every single one of those songs are great. In fact, I tried to record every single one of those myself. When we got to the Kingdom Heirs, I wanted to record them again.
Daniel (24:39)
So, speaking of the the Kingdom Heirs. What did your audition process look like to join them? Did they reach out to you to hear about an opening? How did you end up with them?
Arthur (24:50)
I would go over to Dollywood every once in a while. Of course I knew that I knew that the guys were there and I loved what they did. I mean, I thought it was great.
And they were they were at the time – before I went with them – they were outside all the time out at the Valley theater. But I would go and listen to them sing. I got to know them a little bit.
I knew Kreis French. Kreis played with Jerry Goff back in the 80s. He played bass guitar for Jerry for a couple of years, I think. So I got to know him. And so I knew him really before I knew the rest of them.
And so then I got to know David and Eric and Steve and all the rest of them a little bit more. So I just loved what they were doing. I thought it was a great opportunity to be in a secular arena and to be able to sing the gospel. I mean, just thought, man, wow, this is mission field right here, wide open. And so just love what they did.
So… Steve called me a couple of months before and said, “Hey, if anything ever happened, would you be interested in singing full time with us?” And I said, “I would entertain that. I would talk to you about it.” So he said, “Okay, I just wanted to check. Nothing’s going on. I always want to have somebody in my back pocket or something to think about, you know.”
So it was about a month later, I guess it was, Steve Lacey turned his notice in. And he called me and he said, hey, David and Eric and myself are gonna come over.
And I was working at a recording studio there in Asheville. And he said, “We’re gonna come over and sing a few songs with you. We might get around the piano and sing a few songs.” I said, “Sure.”
So they came over and we sat down, played a few songs. We did “I Go to the Rock” and did some stuff that Squire did and sang a few songs together. A few days later, he called me and said, “You want to come over and see what exactly what we do and look it over and see?”
I went over and we really sat down and talked and everything, and kind of the rest is history.
It was in 95, and spent 27 years there.
But I loved being there. I loved the opportunity. Dollywood was a great company to work for. They never came to us and told us what to sing or what to say, which is pretty cool for a secular theme park, you know.
Daniel (27:40)
Now in your early years with the Kingdom Heirs – well, your first few albums with them, as well as like the first half a dozen albums before that – tend to have, not all but a lot of cover songs, the big hits that the other groups in Southern Gospel were doing at that point.
Was there like an idea in that era that the Kingdom Heirs were introducing secular audiences to the best of what everybody was doing in Southern Gospel at that point, more so than being as focused on their own original songs? Was that kind of what was going on in the 90s?
Arthur (28:14)
It really – it really wasn’t a fact of us trying to.
Honestly, the truth of the matter was we were fans of the music. And so if there was something there – if there was a song that we liked that somebody sang – a song that Gold City sang or one of Kingsmen sang or something – we wanted to sing it. We were just fans, you know. We loved the music, and so we just wanted fun songs to sing.
We weren’t – as far as the industry goes – weren’t huge. So we didn’t get a lot of great songs. We got a lot of songs, but they weren’t great songs.
The thing is, we sang so much. You know, at the time, when I first went, we started up the Valley Theater in April, sang through October. And then my first year was the year that they moved us inside for Christmas. Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus, for that. We didn’t have to sing outside in the cold.
When I first got there, we did five, six programs a day. You know, they were only like 20-minute programs or 30-minute programs, that sort of thing. But we sang a lot.
And so we needed songs to sing because we didn’t like to sing the same songs. What we wanted was – if people came to hear us – we wanted them to come back. And so we would change it. Each program was different. And so if they came to hear us that morning, if they came back that afternoon, they heard something different. Or if they wanted to stay there all day, they got something different. It wasn’t the same thing over and over.
And I think that’s the popularity that we got with our regulars. We had so many regulars that came to the park, and what made it lucrative for Dollywood for us to be there was the fact that all the people bought season passes to come, and a lot of them just came to see us. They would come and watch us and go home. They’d eat lunch and go home – a lot of the older folks. They didn’t ride the rides.
And of course, back then, Dollywood was made up more of shows than it was – you know – it was a theme park, not an amusement park. We had six or seven shows on the park. So people could come and watch all the different genres of music.
Later on, as it kind of transitioned away from the theme park to the amusement park side of it, a lot of the shows went away.
But at that time, we were just fans of the music. Just wanted great songs to sing and fun songs to sing. So we didn’t care, you know. We’d cut it. If we liked an arrangement, we’d do it exactly the same way. That was one of my biggest peeves: if we were recording the song – a re-recording of something – we’d go into the studio. Musicians would want to change it up and all this kind of stuff because, “I don’t want to play it like that.” But that’s what made the song great. That’s what people heard, you know.
Unless it needed to be changed, why change it? You know, that’s how people remember the song. You change it up, they don’t remember the song, you know.
And so I had some knockdown, drag-out fights with some musicians to try to get them – finally they just gave up just, “I’ll play it the way they want it, you know”?
But that’s kind of the way.
And then that’s kind of how we got hooked up with Dianne Wilkinson. Gold City recorded “I’ve Passed Over,” and we loved it and we recorded it. And then we got to meet her.
So Steve and I talked to her and said, “If you’ve got anything that nobody wants to cut or something – or if you got any old culls or something.” Of course, at the time, in the 90s, Cathedrals and Gold City were pretty much their main stay – and they got the first cream of the crop. And then after the Cathedrals retired, Legacy Five, Roger Bennett got all the good stuff. But she would send would send some of her stuff that nobody would record.
Of course, we loved them. And she sent 10 songs, and once we cut nine of them and would’ve cut the tenth one, but the record company wouldn’t let us. They said, “Well, you got to do at least one of ours.”
So we cut all nine of them. But she would send us the stuff that a lot of quartets were afraid of singing sometimes. You know, either the message was a little too strong or the arrangement was a little too hard. And the more difficult the arrangement, the better I liked it.
When Roger died, that kind of opened the door for us to get some of the more of her better stuff. And the more we cut, the more she wanted us to get it. That’s when we started getting some of her stuff. Most albums, we would record at least probably at least seven or eight of her songs.
And we tried real hard to find other songs, but we couldn’t find anything we liked better.
Daniel (33:48)
Well, I think there was a point when she loved you so much, she was sending you a lot of her best songs, but that didn’t mean everybody else was sending you their best songs.
Now, Rodney Griffin sent you a couple of amazing songs too. “I Know I’m Going There,” “As Many times,” some amazing songs, too.
Arthur (33:59)
Yeah. I would call Rodney and say, “Hey, here’s what I need. Something like this.” Or sometimes he would get an inspiration.
When David and Eric and Jeff left, that was a pretty big blow, to lose three members right there. That would have destroyed a lot of groups. And Dollywood helped with that as far as … You know, the thing about the park in the 27 years I was there, I always amazed at one thing. Every program, or one of us would always ask, “How many are seeing us for your first time? Never seen us before.” And you know, the group’s been there since ’86. But
That would be 70, 75% of the people in every program that had never seen us. I mean, that’s incredible. And that allowed us to make changes that a lot of groups couldn’t get by with. We didn’t have a thousand people sitting out there going, “Well, they don’t sound like so-and-so, or they don’t sound like they did last year.” Because 70% of them never heard us. So they had nothing to go by. So that allowed us to really be new every time somebody walked in the door.
And so we didn’t have that chip on our shoulder of having to prove ourselves every time we went out to sing. So I think that helped us survive probably better – easier – than a majority of other groups would have. They would have struggled a lot more, I think, big time.
But during that time when they left, Rodney sent me a song. He said, “Hey, I wrote you guys a song, and it’s called “Going On With a Song. I just wanted to encourage you guys.” It’s a great song and wonderful song.
He would do that every once in a while. He sent me the song, “I’ve Been Rescued.” Do you remember that song?
Daniel (36:06)
That’s a good song.
Arthur (36:29)
He sent me that. He and Tim Lovelace wrote that song. He sent it to me and, for some reason, I couldn’t record that song at that time. That was in ’99. For some reason or other, I couldn’t get peace about recording it.
And I called him, and he didn’t understand exactly. And I didn’t either. And I tried to explain to him. I said, “Man, I don’t really know why.” I said, “I just can’t get peace about recording this song, but I want to ask you to hold it for me. I don’t know why, but I really want you to hold it for me, if you don’t care.”
And it took some convincing to get him to do that because that’s how songwriters make their living. But he said, “Okay, I’ll hold this. I’ll hold it for the next album.”
Well, that was when I had my back surgery, right after that. And I went through that time of depression. I went through that time of the addiction to pain killers, to morphine, to getting off of it, you know – I went through that.
And after I went through that, I knew why God wouldn’t give me peace – because it wasn’t time for it. So that helped me to set up my testimony for how the Lord helped me through that, as to sing that song, “I’ve Been Rescued.” And that was my testimony song at that time.
You know, that’s how we’re supposed to help other people. We don’t look at our circumstances or what we’re going through. We look at, how can this help someone else? Because somebody else is going through what you are. Doesn’t matter what it is – somebody’s going to go through it. And they need help.
And you can either sit back and be “Woe is me, why me?” or you can use it. The Lord really used that.
In fact, I remember I gave a testimony about that in Singing News one year and forgot all about it. And two years later, this guy walked up to me at the record table at Quartet Convention. He said, you don’t know me. He said, “I was in the hospital, addicted to drugs, to commit suicide. My nurse brought me your article and told me to read it.” He said, “I got saved, just because of your testimony.”
And I’d forgotten about it. But that’s how the Lord works, through us. And it wasn’t what I want to go through again, though. But I’m grateful that God used it. And He allowed me to use it as testimony to help and encourage a lot of people. I don’t know how many people would come to me and say, “Man, I’ve struggled with that. I know I’ve been through that.”
To hear somebody else say that they have been through it – and to be real – is what you want to be in front of people. That’s what real Christianity is, is just to be real with them.
Daniel (39:16)
Yes.
Arthur (39:17)
I don’t know we got off on that, but anyways…
Daniel (39:19)
That was – I was going to ask you about some of the songs you sang with the Kingdom Heirs that really moved people, people shared testimonies about them, and that really right in line with that.
So I want to be respectful of your time and not take this too much past an hour. So I won’t talk about every song that we could have talked about. Maybe one of these days we’ll do that and talk about some more.
Arthur (39:45)
Yeah. We’ve recorded so many great songs. It’d be fun to talk about more of them someday.
Daniel (39:55)
But there’s one – when you talk about songs that really moved people – I just want to talk about “When You Look at Me.” Yeah.
Because, well, I’ll share my story with it. You know, somebody who’s overweight, I’m pretty aware of what people think of overweight people, because often enough, they’ll say it. But everybody has their story. Everybody has something they’re insecure about. And it’s really easy to measure ourselves by what people think about us.
And that song has moved me probably as much as any song you ever sang with the Kingdom Heirs, because it reminds me to measure myself by what Jesus thinks of me.
I’d love to hear – when I was working with Dianne Wilkinson on her autobiography, she told me her perspective of the story, and that she shared it with you, and it was really moving to you. You sang it with the group and did an amazing job.
I’d love to hear your perspective of first hearing that song and then singing it on stage and conveying it, and maybe what different people might’ve shared with you about singing that song.
Arthur (40:42)
Well, what you shared was exactly the way that I saw it, because I looked at the people that came into Dollywood. You know, if you want to see a different perspective of the world, go to a theme park and watch people and see. Every single one of them are different.
And if they come into our program, I’m not the one judging them. Just like you said, we don’t judge ourselves by the way people look at us. We judge ourselves by the way the Lord looks at us.
And that’s exactly how I looked at that song. And that’s what the message in the song for me was – that’s what I wanted to convey to the people. He looks at us totally different than how we see ourselves.
And what is successful by the world’s standards is nowhere close to what successful is to the Lord’s standards.
And that’s exactly the message that I wanted to get across to people, and hope that it did. And it touched a lot of people.
Daniel (41:49)
And I cannot think of another song that conveys the message anything like that. It’s such a unique song it conveys. Yeah.
So before we wrap up – moving toward the end – one of the biggest reasons I wanted to connect with you and record this episode was… Sometimes YouTube recommendations are useless, sometimes it’s something really powerful. YouTube recommended a Trinity Baptist live stream here a couple months ago. It was an old live stream, months or a couple of years old at the time. I’m not sure exactly.
And it happened to be the one where you shared your testimony of how God moved in your heart to come off the road and join the Trinity Baptist music program. Now, I just thought I was watching the service. I had no idea it was going to be the one where you shared that testimony. So would you be willing to share that testimony here of how God really moved in your heart to come out of a performance context into church music at your home church.
Arthur (42:44)
Well, like I said earlier, the only time I ever really did any other church, I did a little stint of helping with some choral music and leading worship back in the 90s before I went with the Kingdom Heirs. It wasn’t very long, but I enjoyed it.
It’s funny how the Lord puts people in your lives to kind of set you up, kind of push you in a different direction or that sort of thing.
Mike Speck – I don’t know if you know Mike.
Daniel (43:17)
Not personally, but I know his music, yes.
Arthur (43:20)
Yes, yes – one of the greatest choral arrangers and directors ever to live.
And Mike moved to Knoxville here, lived just five miles from me. And he took a part-time job at this church in Knoxville called Fairview Baptist, leading worship. And he needed somewhere to record some of his demos and work on some music and that sort of thing.
So he knew I had a studio here in my house. And he called me and said, “I’m looking for somewhere.” So I knew Mike, and through the years we’d worked some together. And we weren’t real close, you know – we worked some together and knew him. We were acquaintances.
And so we started working together. And during that time, it piqued my interest a little bit. I really didn’t think about getting into it. It was just cool. It was just different, you know.
But the Lord started dealing with me, and I didn’t know – I really didn’t understand what it was. I didn’t know what He was wanting.
You know, when the Lord starts dealing with you, there’s just uneasiness in your heart, you know. And then you start – you start: okay. Then you go through the checklist. Well, is it spiritual? Is it something where I’m supposed to be? Am I doing something I’m not supposed to be doing? You know – is it that sort of thing?
And then you get into: okay, well, is it something You want me to do? And then you wish sometimes God would just tell you. He don’t work that way most of the time. And He will sometimes, but not very often.
And so you start praying, and you start studying. And that’s the first thing you do is you start studying and buckling down and reading your Bible. And you know, that’s where He speaks to you through.
Man, for months I just could not get peace, and I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what He wanted. I really didn’t. And I was going to the golf course. I was going to play golf that morning, and I pulled up in the driveway of the golf course – in the parking lot – and I just broke down.
And I just said, “Lord, I don’t know what it is you want me to do. I’m just ignorant and I just need you to just tell me. I’m really struggling. I just really need you to tell me what you want me to do.”
And I no more than got that out of my mouth, and my phone was up on the dash of my car, and Pastor Winston – his picture popped up on my screen where he called me. And I –
Daniel (45:56)
If I can interject for a second. So not everybody listening will know. He is a relation of Ralph Sexton, Jr. – Nephew?
Arthur:
Grandson. So after he stepped back from being the full-time pastor at Trinity Baptist Church, Pastor Winston became the full-time pastor.
Daniel:
That’s something that, I know, but I know there’ll be some listening who might not make that connection. Sorry to interrupt! Go on.
Arthur (46:06)
No, no, no, it’s fine.
He and Brother Ralph came to see us over the Christmas.
So this was like April – first of April, I guess it was. You know, it had been like six months that God had been dealing with me on this, and I’m trying to figure out what it is He wants me to do.
So Pastor Winston’s picture pops up, and I answered the phone. I’m looking around thinking, “Man, somebody’s reading my email right here, you know?”
And I said “Hello.” And tears, because I’d been crying. And he said, “I was just sitting here, and you just came to my mind.” And he said, “I just wanted to call you and tell you that I was praying for you, and just to tell you that I love you.”
And I just broke down, and I just told him what was going on. And he said, “Do you want to have a conversation?” And I said, “I believe I do.”
And so that kind of started a day-to-day conversation. And we met a few times and kind of talked and got together. And that was when I felt maybe the Lord was leading in that direction.
It was probably in the middle of May, somewhere or another, we kind of talked and met. And really, both of us were looking at probably the end of the year, and I would finish out the year with the guys, and that sort of thing.
But God doesn’t move fast a lot of times, but when He starts moving, He’ll move quickly. And once I got out of the way – once I just kind of surrendered myself to whatever it was he wanted me to do – and once I quit analyzing… I mean I’ve spent – here I am, I’m my late 50s, and I’m 27 years into a career, and I’m getting close to retirement. I’m thinking about taking a career change. I mean, that just sounds crazy. Who does that?
So – but once I surrendered to Him and said, “You know what, whatever you want me to do, I’m gonna do it” – once you do that and you get out of the way, then He can work.
And it just snowballed, and it was like we don’t need to wait. We just need to go ahead and do it. And both of us were just kind of the same way.
It worked on both sides, and it just – God just moved, and it couldn’t have went any smoother. Even meeting with the guys, because it was – I’m telling you – it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
These guys were family. I spent as much time with them as I had my own family. And they were family. To tell them that I was leaving – it was hard to do. And I didn’t know how they would take it. I didn’t know how – you know – how Dollywood would take it.
And I’m telling you, God just went before us and just worked out every detail. It was the smoothest thing I’ve ever been a part of. From the church standpoint, the quartet standpoint – it was just – it was flawless. You couldn’t have asked for it to have been any better. It was just amazing.
I look back now and I still don’t know how it happened. I really don’t know how everything fell into place like it did.
But I’ve been at the church now a little over three and a half years and I love it. I mean, I just – I love it.
Somebody asked me the other day, said, “Do you miss the quartet life?” And I don’t. I miss the guys, but we talk – you know – we talk about every week, and you know, we’re still friends – great friends. We still get together.
But when God calls you to something, you don’t have to worry about missing your old life or missing something. You know, he fills that void.
And so I love the choir. I love working with the choir.
When I first came they’d come out of COVID. And COVID changed our churches as far as singing. The devil took our song, and everybody quit singing, you know. And the choir had dwindled down to like 35 people or something like that, and it was just barely getting by. But that’s the way it was in just about every church.
Now I have a little over 120 people in the choir. I have a full band. It’s just amazing what God has done in just a short amount of time.
It’s like every week I’m blown away. Every time we have rehearsal – we go to rehearsal every Tuesday night – it’s just another church service for us. I mean, we just go to church and we just have a great time in the Lord.
And every week I’m just blown away at the people that will show up and that want to sing, that love singing, that love the Lord, that come prepared – not only music-wise, but have their hearts prepared when they show up to worship and to lead the congregation.
And Mike Speck always said the choir is the thermostat. You know, they’re not the thermometer – they’re the thermostat. They’re the ones that control the temperature in the church.
And so our choir just love that. And that’s their philosophy now. They want to crank it up and get it going. Every week is just amazing. I’m just amazed at what God is doing, and I love just being a small part of it.
Daniel (52:11)
Wonderful. So you’re the choir director there?
Arthur (52:14)
Minister of Music.
Daniel (52:39)
So as a minister of the music, you work the band as well?
Arthur:
Yes.
Daniel:
Which makes sense because you have a background singing and you have a background playing instrumental music. It works well.
So how can people keep up with Trinity Baptist – and we didn’t have enough time to talk about it in any detail – but with Southern Gospel Podcast, your excellent podcast, and anything else you’d like to mention.
Arthur (52:39)
Yeah, we hadn’t been – we hadn’t done any lately. Darren’s gotten busy and Daniel Britt has gotten busy. I think we’ve all gotten busy. We just kind of put it on the back burner, I think.
So we talk every once in a while like, man, we need to do another podcast. There’s nothing else – just to get together and talk. And that was a fun thing that kind of came along out of nowhere and had a fun time with that.
So I appreciate those. We had some great guests and had some great conversations.
Daniel (53:06)
I listened to every episode.
Arthur (53:22)
You know, one of my favorite ones was, of course, Peg McKamey was great. That was a great podcast. Charlie Daniels – Old Devil Went Down to Georgia – man. Charlie Daniels was a great podcast. Well, he loved the Lord, man. I’m telling you – and knew the Bible – my goodness gracious. Those really were fun.
But to get back to your question: They can go to tbcasheville.org and you can follow us on Facebook. You can go – we have a choir page, TBC Choir, Facebook. Just about every Sunday, Tammy posts something that we do from choir that day and our music.
And we’re fixing to put some stuff up on the website. This coming year, we’re gonna do some online stuff instead of doing an album. You know, a lot of people don’t buy CDs anymore, and a lot of times they don’t – now they don’t even buy flash drives anymore.
So we’re gonna start taking some of our music that we record live and put it up on our website. I told the folks a few months ago that the music that we sing – we’re trying to give them, on Sunday, ammunition for the week.
Monday morning, guess who’s waiting for you? The devil. He’s waiting for you Monday morning. He’ll hit you with everything that he can get you with.
And so you’re going to need some ammunition to get you through to Wednesday, to where you can get some more ammunition to get you through to Sunday.
And so we want to give them some music and give them some stuff to listen to – something that will encourage them – not only to the message that the pastor preached.
Of course, that’s always up with our streaming and that sort of thing, but to give them some music to listen to as they go down the road and to encourage them just anytime that they need some uplifting.
So we’re hoping to work on some of that in the first year. But to be able to get to Asheville, North Carolina and come to Trinity Baptist – we’re in West Asheville. Come see us and be a part of it.
Daniel (55:26)
Yes. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on. Thank you. I really appreciate it.
Arthur (55:38)
Thanks for having me on. We’ll have to get together and talk again about some Dianne songs, some more great songs.
Daniel (55:40)
There are so many good songs she wrote and that other people wrote that I think are worth revisiting and dusting off and talking about again one of these days.
Arthur (55:49)
Absolutely, absolutely. I feel that there are several of her songs could be classic songs that could come up in the next 10, 15 years, I think, that people could pick up and redo.
Daniel (56:00)
I think so! Yes.
All right. And to the listener, thank you for listening to Southern Gospel Journal. Keep up with the latest episodes on YouTube, your favorite podcast platform, or on southerngospeljournal.com. Thanks for listening.