Southern gospel music more popular than ever among sheltered Christian kids

[if you haven't figured it out...Lark News is funny.]

BIRMINGHAM — A recent poll shows that Southern gospel music is still highly popular among kids whose parents allow no other form of entertainment in the house.

"I just love it," said a 12-year-old from Tallahassee, Florida. "I'm home-schooled, so when I get done with my work I go right over to the stack of record-albums and put on four or five, grab a box of Wheat-a-Bix, and that's the start of a good afternoon."
His favorite groups are the Holy Hornbillers, the Tennessee Sanctified Quartet, and soloist Deep Bass Bob.

Recent polls show other kids share his passion. Of all people under age 17 who identify themselves as "completely sheltered, with no access to radio, television or computers," fully 75 percent state that Southern gospel is their preferred choice of music. In rural Wyoming, one youngster boasts a record collection of 500-plus titles.

"I think lack of owning a television drove me to it, plus the fact that we live on a ranch that's twenty miles from the nearest paved road," the boy said. "My dad's old gospel records were literally the only form of diversion we owned, aside from flannel-graphs and an old boomerang."

In some ways Southern gospel has entered the modern era. Last year a quartet became the first group in the genre to release music on compact disc, which many Southern gospel aficionados long considered "the devil's tool" and too high-tech.

"There's a ways to go in getting Southern gospel into the modern world," says the Wyoming boy. "For example, I understand you can now buy computers that fit inside your home. Maybe someone could start a database for all Southern gospel records."