Chris White is the founder of Sonlite Records and a member of the Southern Gospel Hall of Fame. This conversation wraps up the three-part series where he shares his life story.
Show Notes
Check out the first two episodes: Episode 1, Episode 2
Poet Voices – I Am Redeemed
Kirk Talley – If He Hung the Moon
Crabb Family – When It’s My Time
Transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
Daniel Mount
Welcome to Southern Gospel Journal. My name is Daniel Mount, and this evening I have the honor to be speaking with Chris White. How are you doing this evening?
Chris White
I’m great, and I hope you are.
Daniel Mount
I am. So this is our wrapping up our series, part three of our three-part series. If you have not watched the first two episodes, I will share the early parts of his story. I will link them in the description. I encourage you to start there and then come back to this, the concluding part of the trilogy.
So Chris, we ended last episode talking about Phil Cross. You signing him, signing Poet Voices, the early radio success. Since we recorded that last episode, he was elected to the Southern Gospel Hall of Fame, and you got to be the person to break the news to him. So I thought it would be really cool to start this episode by bringing that story full circle. Could you just share what it was like for you to be the one to give him the news and his reaction to learning he was going into the Hall of Fame?
Chris White
It was really cool, Daniel, to get to do that. It didn’t come off the way it was supposed to because we had a little confusion. Originally, I, along with Arthur Rice and his wife Tammy, were going to do this at Sevierville First Baptist Church in Sevierville, Tennessee. There were some writers involved, Phil being one of them, in a writer seminar thing, and it was in the auditorium of the church that day.
Arthur and I were going to get together and talk about what to say and what to do, and Tammy was going to put it on video. So I’m standing in the back of the auditorium, in the lobby actually, in the doorway. It’s a huge sanctuary, so I don’t know how Scotty Inman recognized me back there. Scotty was hosting the seminar, and he knew what we were doing. He knew what was up. And so when he saw me standing in the doorway, he said, “Hey, ladies and gentlemen, I see Chris White standing in the doorway. Chris, I think you got something you want to come up here and talk to us about.” And I’m going, “No, no, I don’t.”
Arthur and Tammy weren’t there yet. We hadn’t even had a chance to talk about what we were going to do. But once he did that, and he thought they were, of course, or he wouldn’t have gone out like that, I didn’t have a choice but to go down. Because if I hadn’t have, Phil would have been sitting there going, and the rest of them, Joseph Habedank and a couple other guys, Tim Green, would be going, “What’s going on? That’s weird,” you know. So I had to go by myself.
I had no idea what I was going to do. So I get about three-fourths of the way down and Phil yells out, “I love you, Chris White.” And I said, “Well, I don’t know what’s going on, but I love you too.” So I was just trying to say anything I could think of, you know.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Chris White
And I got up on the platform and I thought, well, there’s nothing to do, just kind of let it go. And so we chatted back and forth for a second there, and I said, and this is a paraphrasing because I don’t remember exactly what I said the way I said it, but I said, “By the way, I did come to say something, without your knowledge, and I’ll let you in on it. Welcome to the 2026 SGMA Hall of Fame.”
It nearly blew him off the stool he was sitting on. He didn’t even raise his head for a couple of seconds. It was like he was just stunned, I mean just shocked, instead of shocked or something. And then he raised his head up and looked at me and he said, “Are you serious?” I said, “Yes sir, I am.”
Chris White
“Congratulations, you’re now a member of the SGMA Hall of Fame.” And about that time, Arthur came up on stage because they had showed up. Tammy got a little bit of it on video, but I didn’t need Arthur then. It was too late. So we pulled it off okay.
And Phil was shocked. So that’s always what you want to do, is get that shock factor into somebody, you know, to find it out. That worked. That part of it worked. That was a real – and really, Daniel, to tell you the truth, when it’s all said and done, I wish I’d have been prepared for it, but I was kind of glad I got to do it by myself in a way. Because it all started with me and Phil, first day I was shooting for him, and it was kind of a cool thing to get to be just me and him again, you know, to give him that kind of news. So, yeah, it worked out okay. Yeah, full circle for sure.
Daniel Mount
Full circle.
So moving on to another artist, Sonlite and you played a key role in the Booth Brothers’ rise to becoming one of the top groups in the industry. So can we talk about how you found them, how they joined the label, and some of those successes of their Sonlite years?
Chris White
I talked to them the first time at an SGMA awards event in Gatlinburg. And Ron, their dad, was still with them at that point. And we were on a little bit of a run at that point. We weren’t a grown-up label at that point by any means, but we were off our feet.
And so we were all sitting backstage, and Ron started asking me some questions about how we were doing, et cetera, et cetera. So the next thing I knew, we were already into a conversation of what-ifs, you know, those what-ifs, or what if we looked at doing this, or what if we looked at doing that. And long story short, we ended up having an agreement to do a record on the Booth Brothers, which would have been their second record, I think, in the business. I think they did one with Eddie Crook, or maybe did two with Eddie. I’m not sure. I don’t know.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. One or two of that, and then they’ve done a few table projects, label yet.
Chris White
Yeah, but I’m talking about label projects.
It would have been the Sonlite project. Now, Ron, the dad, had retired at that point. And it wasn’t that long after we met, but he was finishing up. And they hired a young man named Joseph Smith. And Joseph did that first record with them.
It was a great record out of the gate for us. And the one thing that made it really special was Michael. Michael’s wife was somehow connected to the writer of the song we were doing, which was an old standard called “Still Feeling Fine.” And I think, if I’m not mistaken, Mosie Lister was was married, I think, to Michael’s wife’s grandmother. I think that’s the way it went.
Daniel Mount
Her mother or grandmother? Yes, one of the two. I’m not certain either.
Chris White
So we got to spend time with Mosie for two days while we were cutting tracks. And we cut “Still Feeling Fine,” which, as you know, went on to be a number one song in the country. And when it went to number one, the rocket kind of took off for the Booth Brothers.
And, you know, it didn’t take a lot on my part or the company’s part with them because they were so good with people, and still are, and people loved them, and they love the people. When you have an artist like that, it makes my job, or anybody in our department’s job, a lot easier to do and do well because you’ve got half the battle won just by having the people on your side. And so that went on for a couple of years, and then they decided to make a move at that point, which kind of shocked me in a way.
I found this out several years later. They had a little bit of a feeling that they thought I might be a little too traditional to hold them back from being as progressive as they might want to be, which turned out to be not that progressive at all. But I think that was a fear, and that will happen to young groups a lot of times. They get all caught up in everything around them, who they’re putting their life into the hands of, because that’s about what it feels like. And so because of that, they decided to do something different.
But again, years later we’ve talked about it, not too many years later actually, and they said, “We were as good off where we were. Thank you for everything you ever did to get us off the ground,” because that’s really what happened, you know, sort of like Phil got out of the gate on that first record with number ones. And when that happens, it’s a lot easier path.
And we’re still great friends to this day. Love those guys. Every now and then I’ll get a text, you know, back and forth from one of them, Michael especially, when he’s trying to be funny about something. So we have a great relationship.
Daniel Mount
That’s great. You know, I guess it wasn’t obvious necessarily to them in 2001 or 2002, but it wasn’t just a couple years after that that several Crossroads artists really started leaning into going a little more edgy, a little more progressive. You got the Kingsmen did that When God Ran album just a few years later that really took them in a bit of… They’re still the Kingsmen, but gave that little difference to their sound. Talleys, same story with some of their songs.
That was just a few years away, but it hadn’t happened yet. So yeah, I can see that.
Chris White
I will say this. What they didn’t know, and what most of the artists didn’t know, because I never exposed it at that point – I did later on – but at that point I had not exposed, I was more progressive myself, and I was somewhat stuck in a traditional world wanting to lean a little more progressive.
I was having to take it slowly because when you’re in a traditional Southern Gospel record business, you have to be careful with how far out there over the limb you go. And so I was trying to be careful and do the more traditional thing. But I’m just saying that there were several artists that were wanting to do that, and we got there with it. It took a little bit, but we got there.
Daniel Mount
Yes.
You know, one other thing that stands out, that album you did with them that had “Still Feeling Fine” on it, the title was This Stage of Grace. Michael Booth put up a video on his Facebook just a couple weeks ago, talked about a few things like how they got on the Gaither tour, which Gaither heard that song and that put a role in it. But he also said they caught lightning in a bottle, was his phrase, with that album. There was something special that album captured that they never quite captured again. So I think that stands as a credit to what you and the rest of the studio team were able to do with that album.
Chris White
Thank you. I appreciate that. Glad you said that. I appreciate it.
Daniel Mount
Sure thing.
So, we were talking about working with the Booth Brothers right as they were really coming into the industry. On the flip side, you worked with the Bishops during their last years as a trio. So how did the Bishops end up working with you? And then from there, how did you help Mark Bishop build his solo career?
Chris White
I was coming out of Nashville one day heading to Knoxville, and actually headed on to Asheville where the corporate office was, and I got a call from an attorney in Nashville that I’d worked with several times. And he said, “Chris, I want you to do me a favor.” And I said, “Okay, if I can.” He said, “I’ve got a really good friend who is the son of Glen Payne. His name is Todd Payne. I’d like for you to give Todd a job.”
And that’s right at the time when Pamplin had bought us out. So that was 2000, 2001. And he knew, the attorney knew, Russ Farrar, that we were expanding some. So he thought he’d take advantage of that to call me up about a job for Todd. And I said, “Well, Russ, I’m pretty full right now. We don’t really need anybody so much, but I’ll keep it in mind.”
He said, “Well, there’s a little caveat to this if you’ll let me tell you.” And I said, “Sure. What is it?” He said, “Todd has the rights to Cathedral Records.”
And it was a label unto itself, not being managed by anybody, because they had just gotten that deal all put together. And I said, “Well, now, in that case, maybe I do need someone,” because what I realized then was that label had the Bishops, as you’re asking about, on it. The Bishops were one of the artists on that label.
And so anyway, I actually turned around, went back to Nashville to meet with Todd, and we got the deal pretty much done that day. And I called Portland, Oregon, which was the home office of Pamplin Entertainment. And told them what I was doing, and of course they signed off on it and we were good to go. So that’s how we got the Bishops.
But we didn’t really work with the Bishops as a label. We leased Cathedral Records from Todd and his cohorts, whoever they all were that owned the label. We didn’t manage the artists on that label. Todd did that. Todd had a couple of other guys that helped him with it.
That’s the way it stayed until they decided to retire. And we were having success. It was working great. But when they decided to retire, that left Mark going, “Well, what do I do?” you know, because I don’t want to retire. And we said, “Well, if you want to keep going, if you want to sing as a soloist, you can come to Sonlite. We’ll take you.”
I knew that Mark had a voice that could stand on its own as a soloist. You know his voice as well as I do. He’s earthy, he’s warm. It’s just a voice you can just curl up to, so to speak.
Daniel Mount
And you hear him on the radio and you know it’s him.
Chris White
Yeah, you know it’s Mark Bishop. Absolutely. That’s a key thing.
Daniel Mount
And his songs, he still had some great songs in him at that point, and still does.
Chris White
Yeah, yep. He can write a lyric like not many people can write. Those lyrics are just like, wow, where’d he get that from? Because it’s lyrics you don’t really think about.
Daniel Mount
Very true. The one that gets me every time I hear it, “I cried when I had to bring Lazarus back.” Talking about Jesus crying at the tomb of Lazarus? That’ll make you think. That’ll make you sit back and think.
Chris White
Yeah, that will make you think.
That sure will. What a true story, you know? Lazarus going, whoa, I don’t want to come back. So yeah, and Mark’s still with us today. I tell you, the guy that really deserves the kudos on Mark Bishop is Jeff Collins.
Daniel Mount
Yes.
Chris White
Jeff has been our producer with Mark since day one. And he’s done just a phenomenal job of understanding Mark, and Mark trusting Jeff all the way. Because Jeff has a way of taking something that’s already incredible in thought and creating a work of art.
Daniel Mount
Yes.
Chris White
And he’s done that so very successfully over the years. So when it comes to Mark Bishop, there’s one guy that deserves that credit. That’s Jeff Collins.
Daniel Mount
It was cool to see how excited Jeff would get when Mark wrote another really good song. Like I was there when Mark wrote “My Name Is Jesus,” and Jeff, he got it. Jeff loved that song, got excited about it, and that wasn’t the only time that happened. I enjoyed watching that.
Chris White
Right, right. Well, he knew he had something to create with there.
But that was pretty much the run of the Bishops. We just got them on the tail end, so to speak, and then got Mark from there on to now.
Daniel Mount
Exactly. Yes.
For a number of years, you had a key role in putting together the NQC Highlights DVDs. And that was an undertaking. People don’t realize how much time you had to put in to get those right. I’d love if you could share about that series.
Chris White
Sure. That’s the hardest thing record-wise that I’ve ever had to do. And you know that because you saw some of it. It was a very, very long process because Quartet Convention is scheduled for whatever week of September, whatever year, and it lasts for six nights. So there’s a ton of music going on in those six nights by all the artists that perform on it.
We started out in Louisville, Kentucky. It now is home in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. But about the second year that we were in Louisville, there was another company that had gone in and put up production equipment in Freedom Hall, which Freedom Hall is a big arena. You know, houses about 20,000 people. Yep. And that is a big arena for a production crew to cover correctly. So they did it for, I think, two years maybe. And the third year – it was either the second or third, I’m not sure – I decided I was going to bid on that show.
So I went to the NQC board and sat down with them and talked about it, and I placed a bid to get the show and I got it. Well, fortunately for me, my wife was in the television video production business, Kimberly, and I knew that as long as we had her, we were good to go. Because she was one of the best in being able to produce, direct, associate direct, whatever her role needed to be, she could just kill it.
She would call the artists that were scheduled every night, whichever night they were scheduled. She’d call them and say, “Okay, you’re on Tuesday night. What’s your lineup gonna be as best you know it now?” Because there’s always gonna be a change or two, whatever. But if she could get as much of that as possible, then she would take that music – if they gave her a set list – then she would take that music and she would break it down: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, you know, tenor’s got the verse, all sing chorus.
I mean, she dissected every song to where that night when she went in the production truck to do that show on Tuesday night, and whoever that group was came on stage, she knew exactly what they were going to do, or close to it unless they changed something on it. And they didn’t change it a whole lot, but sometimes they would.
But she was so meticulous with it that it almost… we call it line cuts. That’s when the director, associate producer, the director, don’t have the information like she’s got, and they’re hitting those shots as best they can, bam, bam, bam. And then when you are finished, that’s called your line cut. That’s the best we could do with what we had to work with.
Then you take that line cut into the edit suite, and that’s where you chop it up and piece it back together to be a project. So it was like, you remember us talking about Kirk Talley and Phil Cross, about how they were hard to work with and got on my nerves because of their perfectionist attitudes? It’s got to be so perfect and so right, you know.
Well, Kim’s the same way. And that’s why she was so good at such a huge job. And I’m telling you, that’s a huge, huge job. Because once she did all that, then she had to work the week of the show in the truck. And usually she was an associate producer or associate director, which means her job then was to tell the director and all the camera operators, “Here’s what’s coming at you, so don’t be surprised. Don’t get shot of where it’s supposed to go.”
And the director’s directing cameras as well. So when they get to that line with the tenor step-out or whoever, they know what’s going to happen, so they got the camera right there. Bam. You got the shot. Well, that means when you get to the end of the show and it goes into editing, your line cut is so much better because you knew where all that was going, that it takes a lot less time in editing, meaning a lot less cost. So any way you can save cost, to that you do. That’s a key, key place to do that. Yes, we did that show 17 years, I think.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, and then NQC ends, everybody else goes home and takes a nap. You have weeks of sifting through footage. You had weeks of sifting through footage because you had tight deadlines. It was out so people could buy it for Christmas, same year. Quick turnaround.
Chris White
Yeah, absolutely.
And my job at that point was to take all that footage, break it down artist by artist, listen to every song. Because even a song I didn’t like, or I didn’t think about making it on the project, might have been the best performance of the night. So I had to watch it to see. I don’t want to miss something that was a highlight reel here. And that took two, three weeks at least to get through that. You might remember more than I do because you watched me do it sometimes.
Daniel Mount
I think it was two weeks at least, sometimes more.
Chris White
Yeah.
And then when I finished selecting the artists, selecting the songs, and I had to be very balanced with the artists. I couldn’t make it label-heavy. I couldn’t make it sound like Sonlite Records, even though it was my label, or Horizon Records, or Crossroads artists. It had to be a cross-board industry. And so every company had to be involved. So I had to make my selections based on that, then make the good artists and the good songs all come together.
Then I would take that and hand it back to Kim and our youngest son Jacob, who’s the editor, and they would take it for another couple of weeks putting the whole thing together and putting it to bed. So it was a lot, a lot of work in that project.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, I don’t think people appreciate how important a good associate producer and a good line edit is until it’s not in place, or until you just know to pay attention for it.
And now I’m going to pick on the biggest name in Southern Gospel because he’s the biggest name in Southern Gospel. Like, Gaither Homecoming videos usually are on top of that. They usually get their shots. But every now and then…
I think it was the first time the Collingsworth Family were on a Gaither Homecoming, they sang an a cappella song, “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You.” And their youngest, Olivia, had a solo. And it was clear to me, just being in the business at that point, watching the camera setup, nobody asked or thought or paid attention that the littlest girl can have a step-out line. The camera wasn’t on her whole line.
Now there’s like a quick pan over to her and catches like the last two words, and I’m like, okay, there’s a line that didn’t work right. So once you know to watch for it, you can appreciate how much of a difference having a director who’s on top of their game and knows what’s coming makes.
Chris White
It’s the key to video production because Kimberly, she does… can I expand on her a little bit?
Daniel Mount
Yes!
Actually, that’s what I was gonna ask you next. We can’t do a three-part series in your life without talking about her as well, because she’s had quite the career.
Chris White
She’s had an incredible career. And one of the things she does is the Dove Awards. When she let go of NQC, then she went to the Dove Awards. And there’s also another awards show called K-LOVE, which is a radio network. And they have a show similar to the Doves.
And they’re normally on Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville. And on those shows, you’ve got the majority of major CCM artists going across that stage that night. She’s also produced solely as senior producer on Michael W. Smith, Surrounded the project, Steven Curtis Chapman, Matthew West. I could go on and on.
But the point is she is at the top of that world, and that’s a big old world. Big old world. And she’s at the top of it in her field. So she does the same thing there, Daniel, as she did on NQC. When she finds out who’s going to be on the Dove show and K-LOVE show, she solicits every one of those artists or their managers or whoever does the communication for them, and she gets that song list put together the same way she did in NQC.
So that night when they’ve got, again, 20,000 people screaming and hollering, they’ve got every minute 25 cameras or whatever rolling, and the control truck is screaming at each other. If you’ve been in a control truck, you’ll know those people are serious. Man, you’d think they’re totally angry with each other, but they’re trying to drive the show. And it’s just, you know, it’s a pressure cooker to say the least in trying to get all that right and get that line cut you’re talking about as good as they can get it, you know.
So she did the same thing on those shows as she did on NQC in the prep part. The preparation is the key to those shows. If they don’t have her prepping it, it’s going to be a weaker show than it would have been. But they do have her, and she’s so good at it. So anyway, that’s the brag on my wife.
Daniel Mount
Yes. So good. That’s great. That’s great.
So pivoting to a sadder recent event. Since the last time we talked, our Crossroads family has received some really sad news with Mickey Gamble’s passing. And I had really been hoping to interview him also one of these days and get his story, but that’s not going to happen now. So I thought that since you worked with him about as long as anybody, I would love to reminisce about him for a couple of minutes. Maybe we could start with when you first met him and then, you know, when you started working together, and then any other recollections you’d like to share.
Chris White
Well, I first met him, Daniel, at a Southern Gospel Music Guild meeting, which is an industry body of leaders that get together once a quarter. And we talk about the state of the industry, the business in general. And Mickey was brought to that meeting by Eldridge Fox, who owned the Kingsmen. And he just wanted to expose Mickey to somebody inside of the industry. So he brought him along. That’s the first time I met him.
Well, then I ran into him at a few concerts here and there and got to talking to him. And as time was moving, I started noticing how good Sunlight was doing and how good Horizon was doing. Because at that time they had Kingsmen, McKameys, Karen Peck…
Daniel Mount
They had the Isaacs about that point.
Chris White
I think you’re right. I think they weren’t there at that moment that you’re talking about when Crossroads came along.
Daniel
Okay, at that moment. Okay.
Chris White
So anyway, I got to thinking one day, I wonder what it would be because we’re all fighting for our place in retail and radio. That’s where it all happened, retail and radio. What would it be to combine these two companies that are both just doing so well right now? And they’re both so young, to combine them and put an umbrella over them as a partnership, not as a merger, not buying anything, just as a partnership. Let the umbrella, which turned out to be Crossroads Entertainment, cover both labels in the marketplace. So we would have salespeople that represent both Horizon and Sonlite, and radio people that were working Horizon and Sonlite artists.
And for where it went after we decided to do that was, and they agreed, I pitched the idea to the Horizon stockholders, and there was about eight or 10 of them. So they all had to agree on it, or at least the majority, before we could make a move. And they did. So we created the Crossroads brand. And I’ll never forget, I went back to Nashville and I had an eight-by-ten office that was empty, and I hired a guy named Mike Harrelson who was living in Tampa, Florida, to come and be our first salesman. Gave him that eight-by-ten office, a telephone, a desk, and a sales book. That book had every retailer in the country in it. And I said, “Call them all. Sell them all the Horizon Sonlite product you can sell.” And that’s what he did. That’s how it started.
Daniel Mount
Wow. Mm-hmm.
Chris White
If you can imagine that, Daniel, and I say that to you because you sit right in the middle of that big old building that we grew into, and all those people, staff members running around everywhere. If you can imagine that one office, one phone, one sales sheet, to grow into what it did is just, it’s just amazing.
Daniel Mount
That’s amazing. It is.
Chris White
So having done that, we continued to grow. And in doing that, Mickey always had a heart for bluegrass. He loved bluegrass music. Now, when we started, we were both working in the Southern Gospel A&R. I was dealing with so many artists. He was dealing with so many artists. They were kind of split down the middle. They were pretty much who was on our labels when we joined forces. We didn’t mix and match artists with the labels. We kept them separate. Who was with Horizon stayed there. Who was with Sonlite stayed there. But they all became a family as well under the Crossroads banner, you know.
And we did that for several years, and then Mickey’s urge to do bluegrass just wouldn’t leave. And finally, we signed the first bluegrass artist, which was after the Isaacs. I’m not counting the Isaacs there.
Daniel Mount
Because they were in a bluegrass style, but they were on the Southern Gospel circuit. That’s what people looking back might not realize. There’s a bluegrass circuit of the bluegrass festivals, and they might have been at a few. They’re more now even. But at the time, they were in a bluegrass style, but you’d see them at Southern Gospel events structurally. Yeah.
Chris White
They were, yeah.
Right, right, exactly right. And then that bluegrass side started to grow under Mickey’s tutelage.
Here, I’ll tell you the thing about Mickey that most people don’t know probably, is he was – you’ve heard the old saying workaholic – he was a workaholic. He loved to work. He loved to work.
Daniel Mount
He loved his work.
Chris White
We had security cameras all around the building, the parking lots, and it was nothing to see his car there on Sunday afternoon just like Tuesday afternoon. I mean, seven days a week for him was nothing. And that was just his life. While I was out playing golf, he was at the office doing something, whether it was just reading or watching TV, I don’t know, but he was there, you know.
But as time went on, you know, he was getting some age on him.
And by the way, the bluegrass label continued to grow. Had some of the biggest bluegrass artists in the business during those years, and highlighted by probably Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. They were probably the leader of the pack in that era. And so he did his thing in bluegrass, I tried to do my thing in Southern Gospel, and we kept it that way for the remainder until he passed.
And when he passed, it was a real shock to all of us. And here’s one reason why, because he’d almost made me start to believe it. Mickey’s intent and goal was to live until he was 100.
And he told us, he told me and Vickie and Jeff Collins – they were two of the other partners. We all owned a third. They owned a third, I owned a third, Mickey owned a third. So it was the three of us that had run the company since we bought it back from Pamplin in 2006. I don’t think I mentioned that. We did buy it back from Pamplin. I may have in an earlier episode.
Daniel Mount
Yes. I think we may have talked, I think we might have talked about Pamplin last time around, but certainly we can revisit that as it’s useful context for this story at least.
Chris White
Well, yes, this story anyway, it does matter because we had the opportunity to buy Crossroads back from Pamplin in 2006, and we chose to do that. So again, at that point, he was hauling with the bluegrass and I was hauling with the gospel, and we both just stayed in those lanes, and it worked really well to do that.
He told me and Vickie and Jeff one day, this is probably a couple years ago, he said, “I’ve got a 20-year plan, and I’ll share it with you when I feel like it.” What do you mean, a 20-year plan? A 20-year plan for the business. Mickey, you’ll be 100. But see, in his mind, he believed that because he wanted to believe it. And he loved his work so much that he chose to say, “I’m going to be here until my last breath.” And you know what? He was. He was.
So, you know, there’s not a lot I can say other than that. I mean, he’s one of the guys that you look at and say, if it hadn’t been for him – I’m talking especially in the bluegrass world – this wouldn’t happen or that wouldn’t happen to him. He’s got credit where credit’s due.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, and just personally, he had such an impact on my life because he was the one who came across my blog, got me to help out doing some website updates for a couple of Crossroads artists at a couple Quartet Conventions. I think it was NQC 2008, just the Talleys, and then for a couple of artists in 2009. And then conversations led from that that led me to coming down to North Carolina working for Crossroads.
Still to this day, a good many of my friends, both from Crossroads and from church circles, are friends I made in North Carolina. Friends I wouldn’t have made without his influence.
Chris White
Really? That’s a good chunk of your life.
Daniel Mount
So, very thankful for him bringing me down.
And I don’t think it’s out of place for me to say this, he loved the era of the Southern Gospel live band.
Chris White
Absolutely.
Daniel Mount
He would speak of the Kingsmen live band days, of course, with his close association with Eldridge Fox and the Kingsmen, and the other live bands in those early days of him working in Southern Gospel. He loved live band music. And that, I think, when the economics changed and most Southern Gospel groups couldn’t afford live bands anymore, it wasn’t that far from that era where he really did more with bluegrass. He was a big champion of live music. He loved live music.
Chris White
You’re so right about that. That’s one reason he was so drawn to bluegrass, was because of the instrumentation. It wasn’t the vocal. It was the instruments. And, you know, I mean, it wasn’t just Mickey either that hated to see those bands go. A lot of us hated to see it go, but economically it just wasn’t feasible anymore.
Daniel Mount
And I understand that, yes, for sure.
You know, I was at a concert last Saturday, which is very unusual for me these days. But I went to a concert on behalf of the SGMA, really. And we got to talking about that very subject, live bands. And one of the groups that was there is Carolina, the Band.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, Greg Fox is with them.
Chris White
And that got the conversation going about how the audience would respond to live bands again. And I was walking out of the museum, actually I was talking to Greg, as a matter of fact. And I said, “Greg, everybody would love to see that come back. But before it can, the economics have to change. And that means the first change has to be with the consumer.”
These people are out here buying tickets. They got to pay what the big boys pay. That’s got all those bands over to the contemporary world or country world or wherever. And they won’t do it. So until they start stepping up and going, “I’ll pay if I know I’m going to see live entertainment and live ministry. I’ll pay.” When they do that, and then the promoters pass that on to the artist, to where everybody’s getting a little more out of the deal, the fans get what they want, the promoter’s making 10 extra bucks or whatever, and the group is making enough to support it, then it can happen again.
But until the consumer – and people may get mad at me for saying this, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter because it’s truth – until the consumer changes their position on this, it can’t happen because they won’t pay anymore for the ticket.
Daniel Mount
Yeah. Well, I think we get a little preview of what it can be like. I got to see the Inspirations live in concert just a few weeks ago, and I guess Roland Kesterson, their lead singer, I don’t guess he played an instrument that night, but everybody else in the group would swap out playing different instruments at different points. And that was the best response I’d seen to a Southern Gospel concert in years. So it’s working. It still works. They were selling vinyl right and left, and I loved that.
But just on Mickey, I think everybody at Crossroads and pretty much everybody in the industry regrets that we don’t have live bands. We all understand what it would take to bring them back into the economics. But I think there were very few people who felt the loss of the live bands more deeply than Mickey did.
Chris White
No, I think you’re right. I did.
I think, you know, the difference, Daniel… I don’t know. I shouldn’t say this because it sounds like I’m speaking for him, and I can’t. But I think most of us accepted it and he wouldn’t accept it. He didn’t want to accept it. Most of us said, “Well, you know what, it is what it is.”
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. I think so, I think it’s fair to say.
Chris White
And he’s over there going, “But now I want to hear a mandolin or a banjo or whatever, you know. I want to hear the live thing.”
Daniel Mount
He was a visionary. When he saw how something should be, he wouldn’t stop and give up till pushing, till it got to where it should be. Yeah.
Chris White
Yeah. I mean, he came to the party with the rest of us. But he came kicking, you know.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
We were talking about distribution a few minutes ago. And there was a really cool period from a standpoint of distribution when Crossroads artists were in Walmart. And I’d love it if you could share the story on that.
Chris White
Yeah.
And that was the biggest sales spike in Southern Gospel history, not just from Crossroads, but from all the major companies. We got involved with a company. I think the first involvement we had with a Walmart supplier was Select-O-Hits out of Memphis. Then through the years, it shifted to other companies, but we were with Select-O-Hits for a long time.
Daniel Mount
Yes.
Chris White
And they did most of our Walmart distribution. And we were in almost every state.
Here’s the question I don’t know the answer to, and I’m not sure anybody does, but I’d love to know: Who was the first person at Walmart that got tipped off and made the decision to put Southern Gospel in their stores? I’d love to know that. But anyway, they did, and we got into most states with our products. And I’m telling you, pretty much all of our product. And that even included bluegrass. So it was not just the gospel side. Not all bluegrass, of course, but the major artists, you know.
We never could make any ground in California, Nevada, Arizona, because of the Spanish dominance. There just wasn’t enough push for Southern Gospel music in those states. The bluegrass would probably have done well if it could have gotten in there. But anyway, we did well except in the very west and the very top of New England. That wasn’t real strong either. But everything else was good.
And I was talking to Maurice Templeton one day, who, as you know, back in the day, he was known as the godfather of the industry. Publisher of Singing News and being he was chairman of the NQC board of directors. I mean, he was the man, you know. And he didn’t act like it, but he was. He was a very kind man. He called me one day and he said, “I hear you’re telling people, or told somebody, I don’t remember which it was, that your music is in all the Walmarts.”
I said, “Yes sir, it is.” Maurice and I were very close, and so I said, “You know I would never lie to you, man. It’s out there. It’s everywhere.” Because I’d been telling him it’s coming, and he never would believe me. He said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to catch you because they’re opening a brand-new Walmart Superstore here in Boone, North Carolina,” where the Singing News was located.
I said, “Okay. The day that thing opens up, you go in there and tell me if you don’t find every record I got.”
Two days later, he called back and said, “I can’t believe it.” He said, “I cannot believe it. Everything you’ve got is in there.” I said, “I know.” And then it stayed that way, as you know, for several years. And it was a strong economic time for all of us at that point.
They did for us what nobody else could do, and that was to put that music in the general marketplace. Because all we had at that point was artist sales on the road and CBA bookstores, that is Christian Booksellers Association stores. So wherever they sold books and Bibles, they sold music. And that was our main market base.
And when they came along, it was just like they overwhelmed everything else in the number of sales that they were doing. So while it lasted, it was really good. And then for whatever reason, Walmart decided, I guess in their evolution of change, to take music out, a lot of that. It’s kind of close to being totally out. And I think all of that was because it started to transition into streaming, and CDs were going down, down, down in sales. It just wasn’t a profitable department for them anymore.
So that took a hit on everybody. But we just tried our best to build a streaming side and a SiriusXM side for our royalty income. That’s how we hung on.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, that was actually the next thing I was going to ask about. Because the music industry was doing great when CDs were selling for $12 or $15 apiece, and then 99-cent single-song purchases replaced those, and then you have the fraction-of-a-penny streams. And there were a lot of record companies that went under during one or both of those transitions, but you managed to pivot to keep the doors open, and I’m grateful you did.
Chris White
Well, it’s probably because of your prayers, Lord have mercy. But it was a very, and it is a very, tough transition to go from a $15 CD to a 99-cent download. But here again is what happened. We tried to get ahead of the curve, and we were visionary leaders. And you know that from working there. And we would do things that most other companies wouldn’t dare do.
Once we were convinced that whatever this thing was, whatever element we’re talking about, in this case 99-cent downloads, was here to stay, and we were convinced that CDs were going to continue to fall off, and we were going to try to up those sales a little bit but not requiring somebody to spend 15 bucks if they only wanted two songs.
Well, what happened, really what happened, was when we started offering digital downloads, they were still getting three, four, and five songs a lot of times, a lot of consumers. Didn’t get 10, didn’t want 10, they wanted those five so they could get what they wanted.
And then on the other side of it, when you took off the fact that, or when you added the fact that we no longer had to manufacture CDs, we didn’t have to manufacture booklets, we didn’t have to manufacture all the stuff that goes into the photo op, et cetera, et cetera, I mean, there was so much cost in there that just went away. Because now the consumer’s getting that file, that thing that many of us have found, and we’re saving money on all of this stuff that we would spend the money on on the $15 CD.
So we probably didn’t break even at that point, but we didn’t do bad, break-even from the standpoint of doing as much as the $15 CD. But it was close. It’s certainly close enough to help us hang in until… Do you want to talk about SiriusXM? SiriusXM is a radio network, with many people listening who are going to be familiar with it and having it in their cars, in their house, and wherever. Well, they pay royalties to anybody they play. And thank goodness, they’ve been very good to the Southern Gospel music industry for several years now. And it’s helped us survive.
So that time of digital downloads on the 99-cent download, and the streaming, and SiriusXM, that all kind of crossed paths somewhere in the neighborhood of the same half-decade, you know. So that in itself really helped us survive, Daniel, in a way that if streaming and SiriusXM had not picked up some space, we would never have made it on the digital downloads because they were falling off like the CDs did.
So really what happened was, you said there was a fraction of a penny per play. It’s not much better. It’s a fraction of a penny, and it’s very, very frustrating for that. But I will say now that we’re getting so many streams, and I’m talking millions, it’s paying enough to where we can tell we’re getting a fairly good check. It’s not going to pay all the bills for sure, but it’s sure better than it was two or three years ago.
And then SiriusXM has been the savior for all of us because they’ve paid a good royalty rate and they played a lot of our music. And it’s helped us all survive, artists as well as companies, because the artists get paid from SiriusXM as well.
Does that answer the part of it?
Daniel Mount
I think so.
So I think I’d like to wrap up the Crossroads portion of the conversation with if you could talk about how you passed the baton to Greg Bentley.
Because when I worked at Crossroads, he was doing CD layouts and working with photo shoots and copyright clearances and a variety of other production-related things. But now he’s in a different role. He kind of is doing some of the things that you were doing when I was with Crossroads. So I think maybe we can wrap up our Crossroads part of our conversation by talking about how you prepared him and handed off the baton.
Chris White
Yeah. Yeah.
In 2017, the owners got together and had a discussion about retiring the company. That included Mickey and Jeff and Vickie and myself. And all four of us were very key components of making the company work. So it was a little iffy, a little scary, to think about going forward without us. As it turned out, you know, Mickey stayed because of that workaholic thing we were talking about. He loved working, so he decided to stay, but the rest of us left. We retired.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Chris White
We decided to take a period of time and train whoever was going to take our seat. And long story short, I picked Greg Bentley. One of the reasons was Greg absolutely loves artists, and artists love him. So that’s half the battle right there, as I said earlier about somebody. Half the battle is just when the artists love you and you get along with them, and then the hard stuff, contracts and negotiating and all that, it normally takes care of itself.
So when I went to him and talked to him about it, I said, “I’d like for you to take over my role as head of the Southern Gospel side of the company in 2019, because that’s when I’m going to retire.” So I took those two years and I trained him through that period of time, all I could. Basically telling him to shadow me wherever I went, whatever I did, you know, pay attention. And if you think I make a mistake somewhere, talk to me about it. Ask me about it because you got to learn. There’s certainly a possibility I’ll make mistakes.
So we did that for two years. And then when I handed it over to him in April of 2019, I felt he was ready in a lot of ways, and maybe not quite ready in a couple of other ways. And I saw the need to bring in someone who could help him be sort of a fallback guy, to help Greg continue to learn. Who could do that? Who could do that? Roger Talley. Roger Talley could do that.
And Roger was close to us anyway because he was producing records there. And it just made sense to hire Roger as an associate A&R guy. And that way, Greg’s got somebody to lean on, ask questions to, whatever he needs, Roger’s there to help. And he knows he can call me, but I think he’s going to want to do that less and less because he wants to depend on himself, you know, not have to call me for every piece of advice.
And that was good because I was wondering, I didn’t want him to call me every time. And so he did that. And that’s the way it’s been since 2019, which is what, seven years? So he’s done a really, really good job in that period of time.
Again, the love for the artists and the artists’ love for him has never dissipated. It’s as strong as it ever was. And I’m telling you, if you’ve got that, everything else can normally work itself out through the contracts and negotiation. The hard part can get worked out a lot easier if you’ve got that love part done, if that’s the way I can put it. And he does, and he’s done well with it.
Daniel Mount
Yes, he has. He’s done very well.
So next thing I’d like to ask you about is, a couple years later, three years later, you were elected to the Southern Gospel Hall of Fame yourself. And I just love to hear – and I’m thrilled. Well, well-deserved honor. I would love to hear your story of how you found out that you were selected.
Chris White
Well, they got me too, like we were trying to get Phil. They got me. But you got to remember too, here’s the thing about… I was just coming out of cancer at that point. I’d had the surgery done in Houston with MD Anderson when I was coming through the chemo part, or in the chemo part. And it wasn’t bothering me too bad, and they asked me about that. It’s not as bad as it is on a lot of people. So I’m good, I’m not going to complain about that.
They said, “Well, we’d like for you to come to Pigeon Forge, to the museum, because Arthur is getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. He’s been elected.” You know, Arthur Rice had spent all those years with the Kingsmen and Kingdom Heirs, and president of the SGMA for several years now. “And we’d like for you to come up because he was in and around your artist roster for all those years, and now you’ve worked with him a lot in the SGMA and whatever. So would you come up and help us pull the trick on him?”
And I said, “Yeah, I’ll come up.” I think it was Greg Bentley or Gary Casto or Clarke Beasley. I can’t remember which one of them called me. But I said, “Yeah, I’ll come.” And I hung up the phone and I thought, well, how do you like that? I’m going through cancer. They want me to come and surprise Arthur. They’re not telling me I’m going in the Hall of Fame. It’s like Arthur’s going in and we want you to do it. I thought, well, that don’t seem fair, but okay, I’ll do it. I’ll do it. So I went on.
And that’s what we did. I started to do my little spiel to Arthur, and all of a sudden Clarke Beasley said, “Excuse me, Chris, I need to let you know that you’ve been inducted to the 2022 Southern Gospel Hall of Fame.” Well, I was totally taken aback because I thought the whole thing was about Arthur. They really pulled that off very, very well. And it made me get un-mad at all of them for doing that to me. I wasn’t really mad. There was a little bit of hurt in there that thought, you know, it’s okay. You know, I just blew it off, you know.
So anyway, I got that done and I was thrilled to do that. And I was just, like I said, in a state of shock. Couldn’t believe it. And everybody is that I’ve been around when they found out. Everybody is really, really taken aback by it because it’s such a huge thing that you don’t really expect. And I didn’t. I mean, the day that Hall of Fame opened in Dollywood, never will forget, what, ’96 I think it was, I was there that day. Never once entered my mind that I’d ever be in it. But lo and behold, the Lord opened up the pathway and I walked through it.
Daniel Mount
Praise God.
So you mentioned the battle with cancer, and that wasn’t just a straightforward get diagnosed, get chemo, you’re better. There were some twists and turns in that battle. How are you doing now?
Chris White
For the most part, I’m doing well. I still struggle with some things. After I finished the chemo, they wanted me to take a drug called immunotherapy. And that was to last for a year. Immunotherapy is a drug that runs around your body and tries to find any cancer cells that got away from the chemo and eat them up. So it’s a safety-valve treatment beyond the chemo.
Now, this drug is known to adversely affect one in 200 or 300 million people. I mean, it’s so minute, it never happens. And both MD Anderson and University of Tennessee told me the possibility, but like, don’t think about it, it never happens. You know, it’s so minute. So I went ahead and did it. Supposed to do it for a year. Thirty minutes in, I was done. It only took 30 minutes for that drug to hit my body, and I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. It was two days later before I really got the full effect of it. And it was tough.
And today the effects I have from it is still issue breathing, coughing issues with it, but mostly the breathing. And it’s not related to the lungs or the heart or anything else. I’ve had five doctors say, “I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.” They just don’t know.
And so now I feel like I don’t have a shot at a medical healing, you know, that I’ve just got to live with it. And I have been. I have been living with it good, but I’d like to get rid of it. Yeah, Lord, anytime you want to take it, you can take it. But if not, then I’ll make it. I’m good. I’m just so thankful everything else did heal up.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. Yes, I am too.
Okay, a couple questions I’d like to conclude with. And one thing I always appreciated in the years I worked with you is that you did your best to make the numbers work, you know, to make the business side of things work so that the company could stay afloat and the artists could stay afloat. All the different parts of that chain worked. But it wasn’t like you were somebody who was just in it for the money. You’ve always cared deeply about the music and the message of the songs.
And to that end, I would like to ask, through the years, what are some of the songs that have meant the most to you personally, that have really touched your soul, helped you through a rough time, whatever it might be? What are some of those songs?
Chris White
Well, I think my favorite of all of them, and this is hard to say because there’s a hundred thousand of them, all of them, so many good songs through the years. But I guess my favorite that always hits me the hardest is “I Am Redeemed” by Phil Cross. That song, that song just, even if I don’t want to move, it moves me, you know?
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. What a song.
Chris White
It’s just one of those songs that does that. Kirk Talley wrote one called “He Hung the Moon,” which was a song I always appreciated from the standpoint of him realizing, you know, if I can look up there and go, if He made that, I think He can take care of me, you know. And that was always a song of encouragement for me.
You know, back in the day, I needed all the encouragement I could get because I had taken on a hard job, a hard role, and it was easy to get discouraged. “Somebody Touched the Lord,” Cathedral, Danny Funderburk. Danny called me just a couple of nights ago. I don’t know if he knew who owned that record company. I don’t, but it was good to talk to him a little bit. You remember the song called “Somebody Touched the Lord,” Daniel?
Daniel Mount
Now is that Danny with the Cathedrals? He sang a song called “Somebody Touched Me,” and then with Perfect Heart he sang “Somebody Touched the Lord.” Are you talking about “Somebody Touched Me” or “Somebody Touched the Lord”? Both of them, okay.
Chris White
Both of them. I love that “Somebody Touched the Lord.” They always killed it on that one too.
But again, I’ll be a tad selfish here and say one of my own, “When It’s My Time.” And I felt like that song, we rush to the point in this world today of not being able to catch our breath hardly sometimes. We’re so caught up and busy. And that song is talking about when I get there, after all that’s done, I get there, I’ll take a million years, maybe two, I don’t know, just thank the Lord for seeing me through and around the throne, et cetera, et cetera.
It makes me remember there’s coming a time when I’m not going to have anything to worry about, think about, or talk about, except whatever I want to around that throne. And then if I go take my dogs fishing, we’ll go fish. So slow down and enjoy your millions of years with the Lord. It’s kind of what it’s about.
You know, I could go on, Daniel. There’s so many. I’m sure you can name a lot more than I can. You’re such a song historian. Matter of fact, you’re a writer too.
Daniel Mount
Thank you. I love the songs.
Chris White
So you’re much more of a song historian than I would be. Let me ask you, what’s your favorite?
Daniel Mount
Well, there are so many. Like you said, there are so many. The first one to come to mind, as far as one of the first ones that when I first started listening to Southern Gospel, there was something special about “We Shall See Jesus.” And I had the privilege to work with Dianne Wilkinson on her autobiography. And my love, so many for other songs, but my love for “We Shall See Jesus” was a big part of the reason why I took a year, year and a half, however long it took. It was a long process to get that book done, and it was worth it because that song touched me so deeply.
But there are, I could name dozens. But I’ll name one more. Deep cut, Kingdom Heirs did a song called “When You Look at Me.” About 2008 or 2009, Arthur Rice was featured on it. Dianne actually wrote that one too.
Chris White
Mm-hmm.cYeah, they did a lot of Dianne songs.
Daniel Mount
They did. But that song was like six and a half minutes long. It just broke every rule there is to break in Southern Gospel. You just don’t do a Southern Gospel song that’s like six and a half minutes long. But that song moves me about as deeply as any because it’s a song that you’d be hard-pressed to find another song that talks about this.
It’s, we are not defined by what people around us think of us. We are defined by how Jesus sees us. And that’s something I think about a lot as somebody who’s overweight. Anywhere I am, people make all kinds of assumptions about me, some of which might be true, some of which aren’t true. But that’s my insecurity. Everybody else has their things they’re insecure about.
And it moves me deeply to have the reminder for myself, and I think it’s a great reminder for everybody else too, that our worth and who we are is defined in how Jesus sees us. I love the message for that song.
Chris White
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Daniel Mount
So I think I’d like to conclude with one more question. Your career had some highs, had some challenges, highs and lows. What kept you going through the hard times?
Chris White
Faith. Easiest answer that I’ve had through this whole thing, faith. Because without that, you’re just not going to get very far down the road. You come to the point of you’ve tried everything there is to try to fix it, change it, mess with it, when you just need to let God do what He’s going to do. And you have the faith to believe He’s doing it.
So every time I got in trouble, man, I stood on my faith and just believed that He was there, you know. That was it. I mean, I know that’s not a nice big old answer. It’s just, it’s what it is. Just what it is. Just right. Yep.
Daniel Mount
That’s great. Praise God.
Well, thank you for your time and doing not just one interview, but a three-part series. A lot of time involved, but I really appreciate it.
Chris White
I’m sorry it took three times to get this done.
Daniel Mount
Well, no, but I think realistically, if I was talking to anybody else who’s in the Hall of Fame and has a Hall of Fame career, anybody who’s had a Hall of Fame career has a story that you can’t really tell in one hour. Now, I talked to Arthur Rice earlier this year for an episode earlier this year, and I was able to talk to him for an hour because his story has been told many, many other places. So I could just touch on a few details here and there that hadn’t been told so much.
But when somebody has a lifetime doing this, it’s actually kind of hard to cover everything that needs to be covered in an hour. So I thank you for your time.
Chris White
But yeah, well, it’d be hard for me to tell it in an hour or two.
Daniel Mount
And also, you know, it’s just been, it was such an honor to work with you for six years and to know you for getting on 20, near 20 years at this point. I love the heart that you brought to what you did. You know, there’s business, there’s challenges to work through, negotiations, whatnot. But I love how you worked through all that, kept sight on what was important, and on keeping the message in the music going forward and changing hearts. Thank you.
Chris White
Thank you, Daniel. That means the world to me. And I will say the same thing right back to you, because I mean it. You’ve been amazing to me. And I love you for it.
Daniel Mount
Thank you so much. Love you too.
All right, well, wrapping up to the listener, thank you for listening to this episode and for listening to Southern Gospel Journal. You can keep up with the latest episodes on YouTube, Facebook, your favorite podcast platform, or on southerngospeljournal.com. Thank you for listening.