Liberty Quartet members Royce Mitchell, Paul Ellis, and Doran Ritchey share their stories and the story of Liberty Quartet as it celebrates its 30th anniversary. We also discuss their new album 30th Anniversary – 30 songs, all of which have new vocals, and 19 have new tracks.
Show Notes
Liberty Quartet: Website, 30th Anniversary Album, Podcast
Songs mentioned include The Beauty of His Grace and I’m His
Transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
Daniel Mount
Welcome to Southern Gospel Journal. My name is Daniel Mount, and I have the honor to be joined today by three members of Liberty Quartet, Royce Mitchell, Doran Ritchie, and Paul Ellis. How are you all doing this evening?
Royce Mitchell
Terrific.
Paul Ellis
Doing well.
Doran Ritchey
Yes, it’s a great day. Good to be with you.
Daniel Mount
Great. Thank you so much! I am looking forward to talking about your 30th anniversary as a group, about your 30th Anniversary recording that just released. But I think it would be good, for the sake of those listening to this who might not know as well who all of you are: Can we start with each of you sharing your testimony and how you got involved with the desire to sing Christian music? Royce, why don’t we start with you?
Royce Mitchell
All right. Well, music’s always been a part of the Mitchell family, and Dad was raised in Texas. So that’s where the Southern Gospel part started out, and they would gather around the radio and listen to the gospel groups that would come across the airwaves. It was just a fantastic heritage, really, being able to grow up in that. We would all be at one pew.
There were six kids, five boys, one girl. It seemed like, Dad would have his arms around all of us, and we would sing hymns together. I was in the fourth grade when I first accepted the Lord as my Savior, and I was by myself, and it’s been joy ever since.
I started singing when I came to the realization of how much Jesus loved me. So I started singing and ran across the street and told my family that I had accepted the Lord. And there’s been a song in my heart ever since.
I don’t know if you want me to say a little bit about the years before Liberty, along with the testimony?
Daniel Mount
Sure, go for that!
Royce Mitchell
In high school, I was involved in a barbershop quartet and the choir, and just had a love for gospel quartet music. Dad would take us to hear the Blackwoods and the Statesmen and then the Stamps, and it was just exciting, and I loved it.
I was a tenor, however, until my sophomore year in high school, and my voice dropped. I moved from the alto section to the tenor to the baritone to the bass, and you know what’s happening. So that’s when the barbershop quartet started, and I was singing bass with that.
Then all through college, I was in summer traveling groups and traveling throughout the year too, with choirs and ensembles and quartets, trio, that kind of thing.
So that brought us right up to finishing college. I got my master’s at Portland State and continued on with a teaching degree, and got my master’s there and was also a music minister in Portland. Now, before that, I was a school teacher, and I taught music, band, and choir, fifth through 12th grade. So music, music, music. When we started the quartet in 1995.
Daniel Mount
Neat. Neat. Paul, I think you were the next to join the group, initially, of the people in the call.
Paul Ellis
Yes, that’s true.
Daniel Mount
So why don’t we go ahead with your testimony, if you don’t mind.
Paul Ellis
Well, I am the youngest of six, and I’m a pastor’s kid, and there’s about five years between myself and my next sibling, my next sister. And so when I was young, I would sit by my mom in church, and that’s where I really learned parts because she would sing alto along with the church hymns, and she would hold out the hymnal and point to the line [with] the notes that she was singing. It helped me understand parts. That’s kind of where I got a love for music and a love for hearing parts and singing them.
Then I was in small churches all my life, so I didn’t have to really be that good to sing in church, in the churches that I grew up in. I got a lot of experience singing in churches.
And we had a couple public relations groups from our denominational college that would come through and sing. That’s when I kind of started thinking, “That’d be fun to do something like that someday.” And I actually went to that college and sang in those groups when I was there. And that was actually my first introduction to Southern gospel music. Most of what I had listened to up to that point was more probably along the lines of Contemporary Christian Music. But I got introduced to Southern Gospel Music and fell in love with it. So I sang through college.
My ministry years, I started out as a music minister and a youth pastor in churches for several years, but all the while singing a lot, and really felt a call to full-time music ministry when I was on staff at a church in upstate New York, in Owego, New York. When I felt strongly enough about that call that I was ready to take a step of faith, my wife and I actually moved all the way across the country to Boise, Idaho, because that’s where her family lived. We wanted to be close to her family so that she would have help with our kids, which we had at that point. So I moved out to Boise, Idaho, and I was in song evangelism solo for about a year before Royce called and asked if I would be interested in joining Liberty Quartet, and I absolutely was. It’s pretty hard to be a solo evangelist.
Royce Mitchell
And Paul has sung every part but the bass part. In fact, he had some lasagna the other day, and it helped him hit some low notes.
[Laughter]
Paul Ellis
I think I had too much ice cream this afternoon because I’ve got a little bit of a frog in my throat, but anyways, we’ll make it.
[More laughter]
Daniel Mount
All right, Doran.
Doran Ritchey
Well, I was born – I was very young and very little when I was born. Very young age.
Paul Ellis
You were born at a young age.
Doran Ritchey
But I was born in Pennsylvania and spent most of my growing-up years there until I was about in seventh grade, I guess. But anyways, my father and mother were very active in the church, but not on staff; he was not pastoring at that point. But I grew up singing with my family. I am the middle of three kids. I’ve got an older brother and a younger sister, and we would sing specials in church at our church, maybe revival meetings, and then other churches around the area. Dad would play the guitar, Mom would play the accordion, and they would sing parts. Dad would take tenor and Mom would take alto, and then the three kids would sing soprano or melody until we started to get a little older, and then my brother would switch down and sing a little bit of bass. I say we would sing, but a lot of the time I was giggling, trying not to laugh, standing up in front of everybody singing. But that was some great experience.
As far as my testimony with Jesus, I was a very conscientious kid growing up, and so I would say I spent a lot of time at an altar seeking God and asking Him into my heart and my life. So I don’t remember a specific instance where the first time was that I accepted Jesus because of that kind of sensitivity to the Lord as I was growing up.
But then back to the music side. My family were pretty conservative, and so the music we listened to as I was growing up was typically Southern Gospel. I can remember cassettes of the Cathedrals and then some records, vinyl, of other groups, Inspirations, different groups. I remember listening to those cassettes while we were traveling in the car, specifically the Cathedrals, and I would be singing along in the back seat, and I would be singing a part, sometimes loudly enough that my parents would have to say, “Doran, don’t sing quite so loud.” But that’s kind of where I just started loving this music, loving this style of music, and it just kind of got into my bones to where this is the music, if I’m writing or whatever, this is the kind of music that I usually am drawn to.
Fast forward, my family moved to New Mexico when I was in seventh grade to do some mission work. Then we ended up down in Florida taking care of a campground that belonged to our denomination. From there, we moved to Virginia, and my dad started pastoring when I was probably in 11th grade. I left Virginia to go to college in Pennsylvania, back to Pennsylvania, to a small Bible college and was involved heavily in their representative groups and their choir.
When I graduated, I started teaching for the school. I taught music, I trained their music groups, and directed the touring choir for a couple of years while I was doing a church ministry job on the weekends. During that church ministry job, that youth pastor ended up moving to Idaho as a lead pastor at Grace Bible Church. About a year after he left and moved out, he called me to see if I would come out and be his youth and music pastor. So clear back in 2000, my wife and I moved with our six-weeks-old daughter, all the way from all of our families, just moved all the way out to Idaho. That was clear back in 2000, and I was on staff there for about four and a half years before I met Liberty.
Daniel Mount
Neat. So I think this would be a good point to start to talk about Liberty’s history, and I think a good starting point would be talking about the timeline, because you’re celebrating your 30th anniversary year this year. But then what I understand is: That would be ’96, but also ’95 is when Royce – I believe you worked with some members of your church choir and started the group, and ’97 is when you went full-time. So what are the dates in the early years between the first starting and when you went full-time? Did you go full-time with the same people, or did you kind of shift around the people when you went full-time?
Royce Mitchell
Yeah, when we first started, it was the same guys. We didn’t rotate the parts at all. It was Mike Peters, Ralph Yerkes, and Keith Jones and myself. In 1995, we started rehearsing, so we started October 15th of 1995. You know, we’re well into our 30th year right now.
And then the other three guys, they were in the choir. They all were owners of businesses, and so they had a little bit of flexibility, to not be there exactly at 8 a.m. on Monday when we were done singing. But in 1996 was the first time that we sang outside of the church where I was the music minister. We started out – the very first concert we did was at a rest home. Sad to say, there were no standing ovations. [Laughter] So that’s how that started out.
Daniel Mount
So in the course of that, between ’96 and ’97, was it just that sort of thing where more and more people started asking you to sing somewhere, and that gave you the confidence to go full-time?
Royce Mitchell
Yeah. There were people who were visiting the Boise First Nazarene when the quartet would sing, and they would say, you need to come to our church. You know, it would be in the area of the Treasure Valley, and then it just started branching out from there.
Daniel Mount
For somebody who’s not from your area, what’s the extent of the Treasure Valley? How far does that go? Where is that valley?
Royce Mitchell
I would say it’s probably a 30 square mile area that involves Nampa, Melba, Kuna, Eagle, Meridian, Boise, of course. So that’s the parameters. Would you say that, guys? About a 30 square mile radius.
Paul Ellis
Yeah, probably about that.
Daniel Mount
Cool! So then in ’97, when you made the decision to go full-time, what did you hope Liberty might become? What was kind of the dream at that point?
Royce Mitchell
Well, I was the only one full-time in ’97 when we started out. As the guys were worn out because of doing double duty, weekend warriors, and then carrying on with their businesses, then we replaced them with full-time people at that point.
Daniel Mount
Okay. Did you hope to tour the West Coast? Was that kind of the original vision, or did it happen to work out that way?
Royce Mitchell
Yeah, we let the Lord direct us, and we started out regional in the West. Then it wasn’t long before we found out that people would, when it got cold in the Northwest, they’d head south. So we followed those folks, and we’d be in Arizona and Southern California and Texas and New Mexico, and then work our way back up as the snow started to melt.
Daniel Mount
Yes. So why don’t we – I think this would be a good point for Paul and Doran to share your stories of how you joined the group. I’m curious what your audition was like, how you made contact, what it was like adjusting to life on the road full-time, if it was your first time in a professional quartet, those sorts of stories.
Doran Ritchey
Go ahead, Paul.
Daniel Mount
I think, Paul, why don’t we start with you? Yeah.
Paul Ellis
I’ve got a great story about my audition. So when I moved to Boise, when I wasn’t on the road singing evangelism, my wife and I would attend Boise First Church, which is the church that Royce started this group out of.
And so he had heard about my singing, but I don’t know that he had ever heard me sing in person. Because he was always on the road, if I would sing a special at Boise First Church or something like that, he was always on the road. But it happened to be that Easter, Liberty was not booked, and I was singing a special at the Boise First Church. I had told him about it, and so he was going to come and watch me.
And I was an angel, and my angel costume – the person getting the costumes that year, I don’t know what happened, but anyways, my angel costume looked more like I should be standing on the corner holding the sign for a chicken restaurant. You know, like buckets of chicken for $15.99 or something like that. And I made the mistake of telling Royce this before he came to see this production. The other funny thing, backstory for it, is that this church is a sanctuarium, and the stage is already about four feet off of the floor of the gym. And for my particular scene, they had me on scaffolding, two sets of scaffolding up above that. OSHA was not a part of this production, so they didn’t have anything securing me onto this platform. And so I’m not deathly afraid of heights, but when there’s nothing holding me up there, I was pretty – needless to say, it was a nerve-wracking experience. I was supposed to stand up there and hold my arms out like an angel and sing this solo.
So I told Royce that I was doing that. He said, well, I’m gonna come and watch it so I can hear you sing. So I kind of look at this as my audition. But anyways, so he comes in, he stands along the back wall of the church, and I get up there and I’m singing this solemn Easter song as an angel, and I’m scared half to death. I look back at Royce, and he’s back against the back wall, and he’s doing his arms like this while I’m singing. He’s just waving, doing his little angel flap. So that was my introduction to Royce Mitchell and Liberty Quartet, and that was my nerve-wracking audition, so to speak, for the group.
Royce Mitchell
The lights were recessed, and they were globes, and I made sure I was right underneath one of them so they got the silhouette going. I wanted to see if the angel did not get injured, though.
Daniel Mount
Do you remember what song you were singing?
Paul Ellis
I have no clue. Yeah, I wish I did. But sometime I need to go back and find out what it was because I tell that story all the time.
Daniel Mount
No worries.
Royce Mitchell
Something about “Fear Not.”
Doran Ritchey
Yeah, probably. I guess my audition was a little different than that, thankfully. I had been asked to play for a funeral. I was on staff at Grace Bible Church, and there was somebody who had passed away. I don’t remember the story, but the funeral service was going to be at that church, Boise First Church. That’s where the funeral was going to be. And I was asked to come and play. I think I knew somebody that was singing, and I was asked to play for their song. So I went and played for the special song for these people, didn’t think anything else about it, and went back home.
Unbeknownst to me, Royce’s baritone singer – I don’t remember if Keith was still in the group at that time or somebody else was. It might have been Paul at that time. But regardless, this previous baritone singer, Keith Jones, was at that funeral and heard me play and contacted Royce and said, I just heard this guy play. You need to hear him play. I didn’t know any of that. But I had gotten to hear Liberty for the first time at that same church. They were hosting the Hoppers, and I went to that concert. So I heard them sing and decided I wanted to try to book them at Grace Bible Church, and was able to work that out and had them come in for a concert. During the concert, Royce asked me to come up and play for him, and I think I played “I’ll Fly Away” with them singing. That was kind of like my audition, just like, come up and do this. Then, you know, we just started building a friendship.
In November, I remember on a Tuesday night, Nampa First Church was hosting Legacy Five and Liberty was going to be a part of that and open up for them. It was probably Liberty hosting them. So Royce invited me, would you come and play for us to be with Legacy Five? I was like, “Yeah, absolutely.” So we went to one of Liberty’s group members’ homes for a dinner before the concert and hung out there. Legacy Five and Liberty gathered around the piano, and I got to sit on the piano bench with Roger Bennett and do a duet while they sang “I’ll Fly Away,” and that’s what they were going to sing together in the concert that night. Well, we got to the concert, and it came time for that special of the two groups together, and I was bummed because Roger Bennett decided I was just going to play for it. So he sat on a step right beside me while I played for both groups. But at least I got to play with him during the rehearsal. But that was kind of my audition with them, I guess.
Daniel Mount
You know, one thing I’d actually like to talk about before we go on to talking about the album specifically is that both of you have been with the group at multiple times. You were there, and then you came off the road, and then you came back on the road. I’m not going to ask you to talk about why you came off the road unless you want to, but there’s sometimes young children, family commitments, other commitments. Life on the road can be a lot. But I’m curious actually for both of you, what prompted the decision to come back on the road after a number of years off for both of you?
Paul Ellis
I guess I’ll go ahead and start. For me, and part of this goes to the story of Liberty Quartet. You know, in the 30 years that the group has been in existence, God has just continued to grow it. At first they weren’t all full-time, and so slowly they added full-time members. When I joined the group and was full-time in it, my first stint, I was doing a lot of office work besides traveling on the road. I was doing a lot of office work for the group. At that time, I was doing the newsletter that we would do, that was a physical mailed newsletter. So I would write it, I would publish it, I would put it in envelopes, I would take it to the post office, all of that stuff. I was doing the books for the group, so I would pay the bills, do the deposits. So I was doing that work during the week, then traveling all weekend. So it was pretty labor-intensive in my first stint, and I had young children. So yeah, the first time when I left the group, that was the main reason, just I really felt like I wasn’t being the father that I wanted to be. So yeah, I had to make that choice.
And so I was off the road for several years. I was a music minister at Valley Shepherd Church of the Nazarene, which is here in Meridian, Idaho. I was still doing that job when Liberty came calling and asking if I would be interested in rejoining, and I really wasn’t. One of the things I really enjoy doing is putting together a worship service, trying to plan out songs and scripture verses and all of that. I was really enjoying leading worship in my church. We had an orchestra. So Liberty called one time, and I told them I wasn’t interested. Then a couple months later they called me again. I said, “Hasn’t changed.” And then a couple months later they called me a third time. There were some things that had happened in my ministry between the second and the third call, but my kids had all grown up. My youngest child was in her senior year of high school, so they were almost all in college.
Yeah, that third time they called, it’s like the Lord kind of pricked my heart and said, you need to at least pray about this. As I prayed about it, I felt more and more clear about going back into the group. It’s, you know, the unique thing about it – and Doran might speak to this too – but when you go back into the group, you know what you’re getting into. I knew what I was getting into. I knew all the things I’d done before.
Now the neat thing about it was, between when I had left the road and when I re-entered the group, Liberty had hired a management team. So the management team, which is still the case, they take care of all of that stuff that I was doing previously, which frees up the guys to be able to just minister.
And I say just minister – we still do a lot of jobs when we’re home off the road. We all do, and we stay busy during the week. There’s plenty of stuff to do, but not near the clerical stuff that I used to.
When I rejoined the group, I really felt clear about rejoining the group. Those first few weeks and months, there were so many affirmations from the Lord. I was worried about missing leading worship and all of that, and there’s maybe parts of me – I still enjoy leading people in worship – but I still get to do that from time to time in what Liberty does. So yeah, there were just several affirmations when I rejoined the group that this was the right move and this was of God, and I’m very thankful that I did.
Royce Mitchell
So between the two stints, he’s in his 17th year right now. Isn’t that right, Paul?
Paul Ellis
Yes, yeah.
Daniel Mount
So you’ve been there more than half of the 30-year history.
Paul Ellis
I guess so, yep.
Daniel Mount
Neat. So Doran, how about you?
Doran Ritchey
Well, I was with Liberty about four and a half years the first stint. Toward the end of that time, I started sensing the Lord wanting to do something. My wife is very musical, and again, our kids were at the age – they were four and eight – and I was starting to miss things there and just felt like it was time to come off the road. We actually went into another ministry together for a short time and realized that God was directing a different way. So we kind of were at a place of just uncertainty, trying to figure out and discern, Lord, what do you have for us in this next season?
Eventually He led us to be in worship pastor ministry in Yakima, Washington, for almost three years. While we were there, my predecessor at Nampa First Church of the Nazarene, who was a close friend, Mike Wiebe, he passed away with cancer, and he had been the worship pastor there for 23 years. Well, the lead pastor at the time called me to see if I would come back to Nampa First and take over, or step into, that role as worship pastor at that church. It was a hard decision to make because things were going well in Yakima. We thought we were going to be there for like 10 years, you know, while the kids grow up. But God had different plans, and so through a lot of prayer and discussion, we decided that that’s the way the Lord was leading.
So in 2013, we moved back to Nampa, and I was the worship pastor at that church for eight and a half years. Somewhat of a similar story as Paul, some things began to change and, without going into too much detail, I just felt like the season of my ministry there was coming to an end and came to the place where God released me from that ministry and was opening the doors and directing my path to be able to come back to Liberty. At that point, our kids are grown up. Our daughter’s married. She’s been married four or five years, gave us our first grandbaby. Yay, I can show you a picture. And our son, you know, through high school. So the timing just worked out really well. Then I came back to Liberty January 1st of 2022. So I’m starting – I guess I’m in my eight and a half years or so total with Liberty.
Daniel Mount
Neat. All right, I think this would be a good point to –
Royce Mitchell
Daniel? Daniel? Did you want me to talk about all the times I quit?
Daniel Mount
Yes, go on, Sorry! Sure.
Royce Mitchell
You’re leaving Monday, you know. Get back on the bus Thursday.
Daniel Mount
Yep!
I think this would be a great point to pivot to talking about your 30th Anniversary album specifically. And of course, along the way of talking about that, there will be plenty of occasions to touch on other aspects of the group’s history, because that’s the way this album was structured.
So let’s start with your tracks and arrangements. I was doing some comparison, and I think at least for some of these songs, you used the original tracks and recorded new vocals with the current group. Is that the case? Is that what you did for all the songs on the album? Or were there some new tracks or other things going on with this one?
Royce Mitchell
Go for it, Doran.
Doran Ritchey
There’s 30 songs, obviously, on the CD, and we remade 19 tracks. So we had 19 new tracks, fresh arrangements, that kind of thing done. Then the other tracks that we used were made in recent enough years that they still felt relevant and still felt like they would connect and everything would coordinate together for the project. So some of the songs, like again, this is spanning 30 years of ministry. So some of the songs from way back when – say, for example, “Wedding Music” – we had a brand new track made for that since the original sounded dated.
Daniel Mount
And that makes perfect sense. So who did you work with on doing the tracks this time around?
Doran Ritchey
The new tracks, I work a lot with Cody McVey, incredible orchestrator, arranger. So I would work with him, oftentimes just basically give him an idea, like, “Hey, we’re looking for it to be this way, maybe this style, or help us freshen it up” – that kind of thing. Then he does a great job putting that together.
Daniel Mount
He’s a great arranger. I think he’s on staff at First Baptist Atlanta?
Doran Ritchey
Not anymore. He’s at a different church now, and I don’t remember which one, but it gives him a little more time. It’s somewhere still back east because he still makes his way to Nashville for recording sessions. I just can’t remember the name of the church he’s at, but I believe it’s a little smaller, so it frees him up to do more of this kind of work.
Daniel Mount
That makes sense because it’s great to be involved with a music program as strong as the one at First Baptist Atlanta, but I’m sure it’s also a massive time commitment. With people recognizing how good he is at arranging and orchestration and producing albums, that makes sense that he’d work somewhere that would free him up more for that.
Royce Mitchell
Ronnie Brookshire does the mixing and the EQ and all of that. Then Will, who’s in the group, he’s our baritone, he did some of the voicing and lined it up to where we all end a phrase at the same time and did some of that. We’ve had different engineers through the years, but on this particular project it was Scott Pregandy who has done a lot with our vocal. And the vocal producer was Doran.
Daniel Mount
I actually had a question about the vocal production and the mix. I kind of feel like, listening through this album, that the lead vocal is a little more prominent in the mix than you often have on Southern Gospel records. Not that the other vocals are all the way to background vocals, but they’re just a little less hot in the mix than you might see on some other records. Is that the case? Is that intentional? And was the thought process just so people could catch the melody really strongly?
Doran Ritchey
Just to give you a little picture into how our process works, when Ronnie would finish a mix, he would send it out to me and I’d listen through it and usually try to catch things. Then I’d send it to the guys and say, give me your feedback. Often it will be, you know, melody needs to come out just a little bit more, because we wanted to make sure that people are hearing the lead line over top of the parts. Because sometimes it can all just blend together and sound good, but if you’re not really familiar with the song, then you’re like, where’s the melody here? So yeah, I would say it’s intentional to bring it out just a touch above, hopefully not to where it’s like you’ve got a soloist and then background singers. That wasn’t the goal, but yeah.
Paul Ellis
Yeah.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, it’s not that far.
So I think it would be interesting to talk about the song selection because, of course, you’re going to be selecting songs from throughout your years singing, but did all the members of the group have a say in songs? Did Doran pick them? What did the process of picking songs look like, and was it partly a factor of there are some songs we still sing that we need new tracks for?
Royce Mitchell
Paul, take him through what we’ve done the last five or six projects.
Paul Ellis
Well, yeah, so for the last five or six projects, it’s been a group effort. A lot of times, sometimes we have put together a massive list of songs, and we will all kind of rank them, you know, one through five. We’ll get it down to a smaller list of songs, and then we’ll vote on songs and different things. This wasn’t quite that extensive in that, you know, we didn’t have a massive list of songs, but we went through as a group. I mean, Royce obviously takes the lead on that. He’s been here all 30 years. He’s sung every one of these songs many times, and so –
Royce Mitchell
I can sometimes, in performance, forget the words and, Paul, what’s my next line?
Paul Ellis
But yeah, we all kind of had a say in it, but yeah, definitely Royce took the lead with this 30th project just because he’s been the guy.
Daniel Mount
Makes sense. Just for fun, do any of you have any favorite songs Liberty’s recorded through the years that aren’t on this collection? Are there any songs you really love to sing that just didn’t make sense to put on this particular collection?
Royce Mitchell
That’s a good question. I hadn’t thought about it.
Paul Ellis
Hmm.
Royce Mitchell
It took us quite a while to pick these 30 songs.
Paul Ellis
And narrow it down to 30 songs.
Daniel Mount
Well, if you think about it as one a year on average, that doesn’t sound so over the top that way.
Doran Ritchey
Well –
Royce Mitchell
Well, 55 recordings, though, that you choose from.
Doran Ritchey
I remember us sitting in the back of the bus – it was the three of us, and then I think some of the other guys started to join – but we sat in the back of the bus with a list of all the recordings and all the songs that were on them, and we would go through every recording and list all the songs, like, should we consider this one and this one and this one?
So not long before this project, we had released the Encore project. There were [fourteen] songs that we were redoing that we had previously sung just to get the new voices on them. So some of the songs, we knew we could release that on the Encore project, and it doesn’t need to be on the 30th project. So that kind of gave us some wiggle room to get around some of the other songs.
Daniel Mount
That makes sense because there are a few that I have really loved from the years you’ve sung. For me, that song “The Journey” is at the top of the list. It’s a phenomenal song. Or “But For A Cross” – I was almost a little surprised they weren’t on this one. I mean, I understand, because if you look at your original songs – I did break that down.
Of the songs that other groups haven’t done before, there were 15. I think half the album is songs that are original to you. There are two from Do You Know Him, two from There’s a Testimony, one from Amazed, two from God’s Been Faithful, one from It’s All About Grace, two from Miles of Miracles, and then there’s four from The Journey. That was a good album. Like, if you had just spur of the moment caught me at Walmart and, not thinking about Liberty, just caught me somewhere unexpectedly and said, what’s the best album Liberty’s put out? I probably would’ve just said The Journey. There were so many good songs on that one. And I can see where, you know, you don’t want half your compilation to be songs from one album. So that does make sense too.
Royce Mitchell
Yeah, and I think “But For A Cross” was on Encore. That was one of the reasons that we didn’t repeat that one. But the quartet has really enjoyed “God’s Been Faithful.” That one just seems to speak to us because He has been faithful through all the years.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm.
Royce Mitchell
And Amazed was good too. Any originals on there from you, Doran, on Amazed? On the change?
Doran Ritchey
Absolutely. Do you mean are there any on the 30th from Amazed?
Paul Ellis
No, that you wrote on Amazed.
Doran Ritchey
I wrote five, yeah. I wrote five on Amazed and five on The Journey.
Royce Mitchell
Twenty-five in all that he’s written for Liberty.
Daniel Mount
Neat. Okay, this would be a fun question. For each of you, which is your favorite song that Doran’s written for the group? And that includes Doran, you answering for your own songs.
Doran Ritchey
Wow.
Paul Ellis
I’ll go first. I’ll go first because right off the bat, it comes to my mind. On a fairly recent album, Living Free, he wrote the song “The Beauty of His Grace.” There was a Southern Gospel chart that it actually went to number two on. “The Beauty of His Grace.”
He can speak to maybe some of the ideas that were in his head when he wrote it, but he’s heard me tell my testimony on the platform oftentimes, and grace is a big part of my testimony because I grew up in the church. But even after I accepted Christ, even into my adult years, I didn’t really understand what grace was all about and didn’t really have the freedom in my faith journey. So grace is a big part of my journey. That song, I think, really captures that well, talking about the beauty of God’s grace. It really – it’s a great song. You know, it’s one of those songs that I wish Liberty was a little bit more well known, that more people would hear our music, because that’s the kind of song that I think a lot of people need to hear and listen to.
Royce Mitchell
Well, out of the top 25 songs, certainly in the top 25 is “I’m His.” And we’ve sung it a lot and it’s been requested a lot through the years. You know, when we ask the Lord into our life, we get all of Jesus. And over time, we surrender more and more of ourselves to where we are His. That realization is a joy. Along with so many songs that he’s written, it’s a joy to sing those kind of songs.
Doran Ritchey
It’s difficult for me to pick one because it’s humbling and fulfilling to see the Lord use something that He’s put in you. It’s like a pastor preaching a sermon. When people respond to a sermon and say, “I needed to hear that today,” it’s kind of the same thing when they respond to a song you’ve written. It’s like, “I needed that song to help me through this difficult situation.” So it’s different songs for different people, but every time they share that story with me, it’s just fulfilling. It’s like, “Wow, thank you, Lord, that I have the opportunity to be a part of something like that.”
Daniel Mount
Well, unless you have a favorite, I’m happy to change the question a little bit for you. Just a favorite story that comes to mind of how God’s used one of your songs.
Doran Ritchey
I think it would be the song “I’m His.” Years ago, I wrote it in 2006, I believe, and we were singing – I don’t even remember where we were singing – but a gentleman came up to me afterwards and said “That song was for me. I just lost my son.” Just tragic. I can’t remember if he was like 19 years old or – it was young. This gentleman was a mailman and had a postal route that he walked for years, and he ended up writing a book about his career. He included that song as part of his story in the book. But we see him frequently throughout the year on tour, different places, and that song still means a lot to him because it ties into how God helped him. Because the second verse says, “You’ve lost the one so dear to you, you’re lonely.” And just the fact that we still belong to Jesus and He’s still got us. So that kind of a story just resonates in my heart for how much God has used that song in his life.
Daniel Mount
It’s really neat!
So one thing I noticed when I was breaking down the tracks on this album is, depending on how you count it, there’s 10 to 13 Cathedral songs on here. There’s 10 that they’re like one of the first groups you think of when you think of the song, and then there’s three more – “The Lighthouse,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and “It Is Well” – that they happened to record but are songs everybody knows.
I’m sure that largely, not exclusively, pulls from the early years of the group. But as we look at this album in particular, we kind of can’t move on from talking about the album without talking a bit about the influence of the Cathedrals and their songs on what you do.
Royce Mitchell
Wow. Well, when we first started out, George called a couple of times just to encourage. He was a real encourager. Even when he was sick, he would call, and it just makes you keep going. So unashamedly, we do sing a lot of their music. They have been and still are very inspiring to Liberty Quartet, and all the guys have listened to the Cathedrals through the years.
I don’t know if it’s because we chose a lot of Cathedral music, but we spend quite a bit of time choosing songs because of their lyrics and the power. We’ll do a novelty piece from time to time, but most of the time it’s how the song speaks to us and we really sense that it’ll speak to the listener. The Cathedrals just were so faithful, and the team that they put together was exciting to watch them work for the Lord.
Daniel Mount
Paul and Doran, would you like to add anything to that?
Paul Ellis
You know, in my testimony about being introduced to Southern Gospel music, that was one of the first groups that I listened to and just absolutely loved. The other thing that I would throw out is: Being out here in the West, we don’t get to rub shoulders with a lot of the big-name groups. But some of the groups that we do get to rub shoulders with from time to time are Legacy Five, Ernie Haase and Signature Sound. Scott Fowler and Ernie Haase, they’re both very encouraging to us when we’re with them. They’re wonderful people. They’re great champions of Southern gospel music and the genre, I think.
Royce Mitchell
I had the privilege to sing with Mark Trammell and Scott Fowler, Ernie Haase, Danny Funderburk, and Gerald Wolfe on our last Alaska cruise. They just did a Cathedral reunion, and I got to sing George’s part, and I’ll never forget it.
Daniel Mount
I’ve not been putting much out in public for the last few years, but I’ve definitely stayed a fan. I saw photos of that, maybe videos. I definitely noticed when that happened, and that was really cool to see you get that chance.
Royce Mitchell
Yeah, it was a real blessing.
Daniel Mount
So I do have a couple of other questions related maybe more broadly to the 30th anniversary of the group to conclude with. But before I move on from talking about the album, is there anything else about the recording process, the songs selected, arrangements, anything else you’d like to talk about about the album or promote? Anything else you want to talk about that’s connected to it before we move on to maybe some more broader 30th-anniversary-type conversation?
Royce Mitchell
Well, you have a keen ear and you know Liberty pretty well. You probably heard an accordion on a couple songs on the 30th. Doran’s mom – he was telling you earlier that his mom used to play the accordion, and I’m sure that was part of the reason that he did it. But he wanted that particular style in there, and it does add a lot.
Daniel Mount
Neat.
Doran Ritchey
Well, I can’t give my mom credit for that one because she doesn’t play that way. But I had heard – I don’t know if you’re familiar with the name Jeff Taylor. He is an amazing accordion player, and he has a way of just throwing – he does a lot of stuff with Buddy Greene, and he has a way of throwing this Cajun-country kind of flair. We switched up the tempos on a few songs. It’s like, I want this to go kind of Cajun-country, and I want Jeff playing accordion on it. Cody was able to line that up, and it just made the song.
I guess I would say about the project, we tried to do some freshening up, like little tweaks maybe vocally or with the arrangement or something, to where when somebody listens to it or they look at the titles and say, I know this song, I’ve heard it a million times. But when they listen to it, it’s like, I didn’t expect that to come. I didn’t expect it to go that direction. Just to provide some interest and make it fresh – even for us to sing when we travel around, because we’re kind of touring with that project this year and singing a lot of those songs off of that.
Daniel Mount
Neat.
Paul Ellis
You know, one thing I would just say about the project, just to represent the two guys that aren’t on the interview right now. Will Arasmith, who sings baritone for us, he’s a tech guy, totally. He, on several of our recordings, has done the tuning on them and helped with that. So he did that on this recording as well. On our a cappella recording, he did the tuning and the mixing on that. So he’s done a lot of that. He’s had his own fingerprint on the recordings in recent years.
And the other thing I would say, as far as our tenor, Peyton Olive – he just joined the group three years ago, and he hit the ground running, so to speak, as far as the recordings that we had him sing on. I don’t listen to a lot of Southern Hospel music outside of Liberty Quartet, but I do listen to enough to know that Peyton is one of the finest young tenor singers in Southern Gospel music right now. We’re humbled that he has chosen to come out here and sing with us, but he’s doing a fine job. And for as young as he is, he’s just really doing a great job, not only of singing the part, but he’s a fine young man in every sense of the word as far as his testimony, his desire to grow in grace. So it’s been a privilege to have him as part of the group too.
Daniel Mount
I like the scale of time you all work on where you can say he’s just been with us three and a half years, because for a lot of groups on the East Coast, that’s a pretty good length of time for somebody to hang in with that group and move on to somebody else.
[Laughter]
Daniel Mount
And you talk about the different things you did to change up the arrangements and keep them fresh. Some of these songs actually predate when I first started listening to you, about 2006/7/8, somewhere in there. So I wasn’t equally familiar with every song, although I was familiar with most of them because most of them are from since that point. But even without observing every detail at first glance, I was anticipating this might just be a compilation. And if it was a compilation, I might have done a different episode with you all and just talked about the 30 years generally, but I wouldn’t have talked about the album specifically – because how do you talk about a compilation for 30 minutes or 45 minutes? But once I got into it and realized what you had done to freshen it up…
I just thought I was going to listen to a couple songs. I was like, yeah, this is a compilation. I’ve heard all these songs before. I’ll just go back and listen to them on their original albums. And here I go, and I looked up and realized I was on track 27, I think it was. And that was just on the first listen, thinking I’d listen to two or three. [Laughter]
Royce Mitchell
Wonderful.
Daniel Mount
So before we wrap up, there’s a couple of other things you’re doing to celebrate your 30th anniversary, including a podcast. And I’d love it if you can mention that. People can subscribe to your YouTube channel to keep up with that and anything else you’re doing to celebrate the 30th.
Paul Ellis
You’re asking the three guys that know the least. But the other two guys that I just mentioned, Will and Peyton, have kind of been the ones to get the ball rolling on that. And I’m excited to see what’s going to come of it. They’re interviewing all the different gentlemen who have been a part of Liberty throughout the 30 years. So they’re going to be doing different episodes throughout the course of this year, leading up to our grand finale, so to speak, September 18th through the 20th. We’re having a big shindig out here in the Treasure Valley in Meridian, Idaho. It will be Friday night, all day Saturday, and then all day Sunday as well. It’ll culminate with a big concert on Sunday night where we’ve invited all of the former members to come back and be a part of that.
Daniel Mount
For those people who love your music and live multiple days’ drive away from the West Coast, do you have any idea if that will be video recorded?
Royce Mitchell
Yes, it will be.
Paul Ellis
Yes.
Doran Ritchey
We’ve talked about it, yeah.
Daniel Mount
Great. That’s wonderful.
Doran Ritchey
Daniel, I can speak a little bit to the podcast because what they’re doing – Will has a whole schedule lined up to where every week now, from now until the anniversary, there’s going to be a new something released. So he’s alternating it between like a lyric video of one of our songs. He’s done some live video footage, like of NQC, and he’ll alternate it with the podcast interviews. Then he’s also going back to some of our old DVDs, like The Miracle Continues, the very first one that Liberty put out. He’s going to every week release something to our social media and to our YouTube channel to where people can kind of see, through the 30 years, things that Liberty has been involved with. So I’d encourage people to check that out and subscribe to that so they can catch all of those weekly releases.
Daniel Mount
Neat. All right, here’s a question on a different angle. When I talked to you some years back, I did a feature interview with you back when I was blogging in 2009. Keith was with the group, Jordan was with the group, Royce was there, of course. I forget who the lead singer was that year. Was it Dan Gilbert still? I’m not sure.
Anyhow, back at that point, I think you were the only full-time Southern Gospel group touring primarily in the West Coast and Western states. Is that still the case? So what are the blessings and challenges of being the only full-time – you mentioned some of the blessings, some of the challenges. You’ve spent 30 years, most of that time, maybe not all of the time, but a good chunk of that time, you’ve been the only group doing what you do full-time in that part of the country. What are some of the blessings and challenges over the last 30 years of your unique opportunity, but also challenge, in your ministry?
Royce Mitchell
Well, we’re definitely – people are wanting us to go east, and we try to get there a trip a year. But we primarily stay in the West. We do a Midwest trip every year. It’s like a 10-day tour. Once in a while, we’ll go to Pennsylvania, where Doran grew up, and sing in that area. But primarily we stay in the West. So it’s hard to cover all the area with being the only full-time group. There were more groups when we first started, but they’ve aged out, they’ve retired, or just can’t make it financially. We are primarily a church group, so we have a lot of liberty to go where God calls us to go. So yeah, that’s one of the challenges, covering the ground. It’s a wide area. And we put a lot of miles on that new bus.
Daniel Mount
And I think, just to go back to something you said – it might have been you who said this back in 2009. I’m just going from memory here. But I think you’ve also mentioned that for people who enjoy this style of music, some of whom hear it for the first time, but some of whom used to live out East, have parents or grandparents who lived out East, introduced them to the style of music, there’s also a lot of appreciation for somebody bringing it to their hometown or at least their home state or region. There are major groups that come out West once in a while and do a few dates, but plenty of places you go have nobody who does remotely close to what you do doing anything near that. And I think on the blessing side, there’s a lot of appreciation from the people in the West that you bring what you do there too. Is that fair to say?
Royce Mitchell
Yes, yeah. But because of social media, a lot of people won’t make the effort to go to a church if they can watch it streaming. They’ll do that. And of course young people, they’re on their phones multiple hours a day. In that case, I’m still young, I guess, because I’m on it too much. You know, it makes it so accessible, but being at the venue is the best way to experience it.
Daniel Mount
All right, here’s an interesting question. I think this is the last main question of the interview. Suppose that, in God’s grace, we’re all here talking again in 20 years discussing Liberty Quartet’s 50th anniversary. What do you hope will be the same, and is there anything you hope might be different?
Doran Ritchey
I hope we don’t release a 50-song project.
Paul Ellis
I hope we still have the same group members. These five guys that we’ve got in this group right now are quality guys. I’m thankful to have the opportunity to travel with all of them.
Daniel Mount
Neat.
Royce Mitchell
The best group that we’ve had is the current group that we have right now. And, you know, I hope that we affect the next generations to where they get involved in it, and there’s multiple groups in the West that are traveling full-time. It really is a desire of mine, and I know it is of the other guys too. And bringing on a new person like Peyton, who was 19 when he started, that’s kind of the idea. And it’s nice when they’re singing those high B-flats and Cs to have those young lungs.
Paul Ellis
Definitely.
Doran Ritchey
Another thing I would add is, there’s something special about the ministry God’s given us. Royce mentioned to be in a church group, and we really do – we sing in a few events. We’re singing in Branson at the Praise Fest this fall. We’ve been a part of Visalia, the Great Western Fan Festival, and Mesa. But there’s something unique with Liberty that I like, and it’s just the ministry God’s called us to, to the local church. Three of us have been worship pastors. Well, I guess Peyton has too. He’s done some worship leading, so four of us. So we really do have a heart for the church. And because we’re not in full-time church ministry on staff doesn’t mean that our heart still isn’t pastoral. We love to have those opportunities to encourage the church, to encourage the pastors at the churches. We build relationships with them every time we go back, and so we can ask them, how’s your church doing? How are you doing? Just that aspect of ministry, that if we were focused more on events, we wouldn’t have that opportunity. So I hope in 20 years that Liberty is still focused in the church as God directs and leads.
Daniel Mount
Neat, very neat. Yes, well said. All right, so just to conclude, how can people keep up with Liberty? Is there anything else you’d like to mention, anything else you’d like to plug?
Doran Ritchey
Definitely all of our social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, I mean all of those things. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. But then as far as the – go ahead, Paul – Bandsintown.
Paul Ellis
Yep, Bandsintown, Bandsintown for our concerts and that kind of stuff.
Doran Ritchey
And sign up for our newsletter. We send out a weekly newsletter that tells people where we’ve been, where we’re going, and it’s a great way to stay in touch regularly.
Paul Ellis
Yes.
Royce Mitchell
Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Apple Music.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, so I would just say if somebody goes to LibertyQuartet.com and scrolls down to the footer, you can find the newsletter sign-up link and all the other links all in one place right there. Yep.
Royce Mitchell
Really? [Laughter]
Daniel Mount
Thank you all so much for coming on, sharing your time. I know you’re off for several days, so giving up some time on an off day to come on and share about this 30th anniversary, I really appreciate it. Thank you to all three of you.
Royce Mitchell
It’s good to see you again, Daniel. Love your ministry.
Daniel Mount
Likewise. Thank you so much. Likewise.
Paul Ellis
Yeah, it’s nice to meet you, and thank you for having us. Appreciate it.
Doran Ritchey
Yeah, appreciate what you’re doing, and I hope it continues for years and years. I think it’s a great avenue of allowing people kind of an inside look at what artists are doing and their ministries. And so you play a huge role in that ministry. So thank you for what you’re doing.
Daniel Mount
Thank you! And to the listener, I would say thank you 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. Thanks for listening.