2009 Favorite Quartet cd of the year.

Daywind Records has done the fans a great service by releasing Skylite albums from the 1950s and 1960s on cd. They did six double album releases last year and I got all of them. My favorite quartet album of the year was on one of those. I had heard just about all the songs on the Statesmen “Encores”, but had never heard that album until I got this disk. There’s just not much to beat the Statesmen unless it be the Blackwoods (I’ve always given them the edge between the two groups which traveled together for years because of my esteem for James). This recording is right on target. It is better than any quartet album released in the last twenty years. Keep it up Daywind. I want to buy more of these sets this year.

Other winners for the past five years:
2008: Brian Free and Assurance “Real Faith”
2007: Cathedrals “Greatest Gospel Hits”
2006: Blackwood Brothers “Beautiful Isle Of Somewhere”
2005: Imperials “Fireside Hymns”
2004: Dove Brothers “Born Again”

Note: three out of the five choices are all lps I acquired in those years of albums that were over 40 years old. The old wine (figuratively speaking since I don’t drink wine) IS the best.