Good News! Quartet
Jim Foy
Jerry Fairchild
Joe Mazzone
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Good News! QuartetJim Foy Jerry Fairchild Joe Mazzone |
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It was with this inspiration that two-time gold medal winner Mo Rector of San Antonio, Texas, formed the Good News! quartet. The need and the ministry was simple: to make available good, simple, natural, four part a cappella arrangements of Christian hymns and gospel songs, and to help them learn the music by producing cassette learning tapes.
So, in 1985 Mo gathered three other international quartet champion singers and they began singing God's praises. Since then the Good News! has been hosting a Gospel Sing-a-long every year at the annual Barbershop Convention in cities all across the United States and Canada. They began with 150 singers in Hartford, CT., and it has grown to over 1500 enthusiastic singers last year in Salt Lake City, UT. Mo was replaced by Jim Foy as the bass in 1992. The Good News! has produced five recordings containing sixty-two of the world's favorite spiritual songs, all done in the barbershop style. They are now working on their sixth album.
But this quartet is unique in that they travel about 3200 miles to get together for a weekend rehearsal. Their home states border the four sides of our country: California, Minnesota, Florida, and Texas. They worship in four different Christian denominations: Catholic, Evangelical Free, Covenant, and Methodist. They have four ethnic back- grounds: English, Irish, German, and Italian. They sing four voice parts: bass, baritone, lead, and tenor. They won their gold medals in four different quartets in four different years. With all these differences they still agree on many things, especially that Jesus Christ is their personal Lord and Savior. As long as they have breath to sing they will sing His praises.