Southern Gospel Music Association - SGMA

08/30/2026

James Lewis "Big Lew" Garrison was born on this day in 1933 in Carter County, Tennessee. “Big Lew,” as he was affectionately known, sang tenor with The Prophets Quartet from 1959 to 1971. He was known for his powerful falsetto voice, and how he closed each program with “Just A Rose Will Do.” He retired in 1971 to his hometown of Elizabethton, Tennessee. He suffered a stroke on August 28, 1994, and passed away one day after his 61st birthday on August 31, 1994. He was inducted into the SGMA Hall of Fame in 2015.

See his induction video at this link

James Lewis "Big Lew" Garrison was inducted into the Southern Gospe...

08/29/2026

Two of our SGMA Hall of Fame inductees share the same birthday today. They represent the spectrum of a Southern Gospel quartet: one was a legendary tenor, and the other is a "living legend" bass:

(1) Roland Dwayne “Rosie” Rozell was born August 29, 1928 in Hardy, Oklahoma, Rosie Rozell became one of the premier tenors in the Southern Gospel Music industry.

After a brief tenure with the Tulsa Trumpeteers in the mid-1950's, he was hired by the Statesmen Quartet in 1958. He quickly emerged as a unique stylist, thrilling audiences with unforgettable performances on song like “Hide Thou Me,” “Leave It There,” and “Oh What a Savior.” Over the next decade and a half, he anchored the tenor position and helped keep the quartet at the top of the Southern Gospel Music profession.

In January 1970, Rosie left the Statesmen to form a successful family group–Rosie Rozell and the Searchers. Over the next two decades, he remained one of the most popular personalities in the gospel music industry and, despite poor health, continued to perform with amazing quality and consistency.

He returned briefly to the Statesmen in the mid-1970s and then sang as one of the founding members of the legendary Masters V in the early 1980's. He passed away on February 28, 1995 and was posthumously inducted in 1999;

(2) Tim Riley. Gadsden, Alabama, gave Southern Gospel one of its most distinctive bass singers and a man whose leadership produced one of the premier quartets within the Southern Gospel Music family. Born August 29, 1945, Tim Riley grew up in a church where his father served as choir director. Like many other Southern Gospel singers, he was also influenced by the Gospel strains he heard on the radio and the performances every Sunday morning on shows like the “Gospel Singing Jubilee” and the “Gospel Caravan.”

As early as 14, he was performing in a local quartet sponsored by his school’s FFA program. Upon graduation from high school, Tim became part of The Gadsden Harmoneers with Wally Fowler. The following year, he became J. G. Whitfieldís replacement as bass singer for The Dixie Echoes. After a stint in the US Army serving in Vietnam, Tim returned home to marry his long-time sweetheart Barbara. As fate would have it, he was also able to regain his job with The Dixie Echoes, this time replacing another Southern Gospel legend, Ken Turner, who had recently moved to The Blackwood Brothers Quartet. From 1974 to 1979, Tim sang bass with The Southmen but it was his move in 1980 to the newly formed Gold City Quartet that would cement his place in Southern Gospel history.

For the next three decades, Tim would anchor the bass position and manage one of Southern Gospel’s best quartets. In the decades of the 1980's and 90's, the group rose to become recognized as among the industry’s elite quartets receiving numerous awards and headlining concerts across the nation. During a particularly successful stretch in the late 80's and early 90's, the group took the Singing News Fan Award for the overall Favorite Group for six consecutive years. A fan favorite (having personally collected five Fan Awards for Favorite Bass Singer) and an acknowledged industry leader, Tim Riley takes a deserved place on the wall of honor as a member of Southern Gospel’s best, and was inducted in 2013.

08/29/2026

Gold City💫🎵❤️..!! Sept. 11th in Arab, Alabama. Don’t miss it…!!🙌

No Ticket Required for concert🎉..
Doors open at 5:30pm.
Concert starts at 6:30pm.

🎟️ Ticket required for “Meet and Greet” at 4:30pm 👉 https://sgma.org/product/1207220-backstage-meet-and-greet-pass-for-gold-city-sgma-benefit-concert-arab-al

08/28/2026

We honor the memory of David Reece, who was born on this day in 1928. David Reece was a native of Jonesville, NC. A multi-talented individual, he had a lovely baritone voice, was an excellent pianist, an exceptional arranger, a gifted songwriter, and one of the funniest men in gospel music.

Reece played for many of the major quartets in Southern Gospel Music including the Blue Ridge Quartet, the Rangers Quartet, the Imperial Sugar Quartet, the Harvesters Quartet, Stamps Ozark Quartet and the Deep South Quartet. In the late 1950s, Reece formed the supreme male trio, the Rangers Trio. Their exceptionally smooth sound was built around David’s rich baritone voice and his understated piano technique, and many of the group’s performances were Reece’s compositions.

His recording, “Musical Meditations” was one of the first instrumental albums to be released by a gospel music artist. Using all of David’s skills to perfection, the Rangers Trio became the standard by which other trios were judged. In addition to the popular gospel songs of the day, the Rangers Trio also performed some novelty songs that became standards for the group. One such song was “The Mockingbird,” a crowd favorite for as long as the Rangers performed. David co-authored the well-known Jimmie Davis song, “So Many Reasons.”

After a long career in gospel music, Reece worked in the secular entertainment field both as a musician with Mel Tillis and writer of comedy for artists including the beloved Minnie Pearl. His alter ego, Uncle Willie Potts, kept people laughing through the good times and bad. David even did some comedy as an alter ego "Unkle Willie Potts".

He passed away on March 17, 1999 and was posthumously inducted into the SGMA Hall of Fame in 2007.

08/27/2026

https://sgma.org/product/179457-purchase-a-personalized-brick

08/27/2026

Join our SGMA “Walk of Fame” order by September 14th & your brick 🧱 will be engraved & installed before the National Quartet Convention.

In 1996, the Southern Gospel Music Association accepted an offer from “Etch-A-Stone” of Philadelphia, Mississippi to start a commemorative brick program as a fundraiser for the SGMA Hall of Fame Museum. The bricks were sold for $100 (same price today) & engraved with the name of groups or individuals as a lasting memorial. “Pave Your Way into Southern Gospel History” was our promotional slogan, and they were called “Walk of Fame” bricks. The first year 155 bricks were sold.

When the museum opened in 1999 at Dollywood Theme Park, all the bricks purchased were inlaid in the walkway plaza as a permanent tribute to those who helped lay our foundation.

Today, we have over 2,100 engraved bricks. Those bricks from the Dollywood location were carefully packed into storage until they were moved to the new location at the Biblical Times Dinner Theater, where they now reside, as you see in the pictures attached.

Many friends of Gospel music helped finance the first museum. Now you have the same opportunity to “Pave Your Way into Southern Gospel History” contributing to the preservation of the Southern Gospel legacy.

Place your order online & your information to engrave on the brick. (Brick format = 3 Lines, 14 characters per line including spaces)

08/27/2026

We honor the memory of Jack Pittman, who was born on this day in 1926 in Greenville, South Carolina. Jack Pittman’s musical career started as a young teenager singing with the Little Four Quartet. In 1942, he attended the Vaughn School of Music and in 1944, Frank Stamps hired him. While with the Stamps organization, Jack sang with the Stamps Great Plains Quartet, the Carl Raines Stamps Quartet, the Stamps Melody Boys, and the Stamps-Baxter All-Stars. Jack Pittman joined the Palmetto State Quartet in the early 1950s.

Pittman sang with the Palmetto State Quartet for more than forty years. During his time of service with the Palmetto State Quartet, they were known for their excellent presentation of southern gospel quartet music. They appeared as regulars on Bob Poole’s Gospel Favorites TV Show which aired nationally on over a hundred and twenty stations with Pittman selling the advertising for the program locally. He retired from the quartet in 1997.

Jack’s reputation in gospel music stretches far beyond the performing stage. He was an astute businessman who never forgot his friends in gospel music. Pittman was instrumental in forming the Grand Ole Gospel Reunion in 1988. Jack was also awarded the Marvin Norcross Award in 1988. He passed away on December 29, 2013, and was inducted into the SGMA Hall of Fame in 2006.

08/26/2026

We want to wish one of our "living legends" a happy birthday today: Marlin Raymond Taylor. Marlin was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1935. His first memory of listening to the radio was on December 7th, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor. At age 10, his mother sacrificed to buy him a Philco Transitone radio for $19.40. He loved listening to radio series like Tom Mix and Sky King. But, even at that age, he became interested in not just the programs, but the programming. His first radio broadcasting experience was in 1955 at WTNJ 1300 AM in Trenton, New Jersey. He answered calls from listeners making requests, which resulted in his being offered the opportunity to engineer a series of remote broadcasts. Although having no formal training nor college education but being blessed by the Lord with an intuitive sense and understanding of how things should be done, Marlin was able to utilize this small beginning and build it into a successful and rewarding career.

Marlin’s only experience as a DJ came after he was drafted in 1958 and later assigned to Thule Air Force Base in Greenland, 1,000 miles south of the north pole. While there, he was assigned to the evening shift at the base radio station, KOLD (how appropriate for the climate there!). He dubbed the station, “the warm voice from the cold north.” After his discharge in 1961, he went to work for WHFS in Bethesda, Maryland, his first FM station. In 1963, he joined a new FM Station in Philadelphia, WDVR, as station manager and program director where he developed a new approach to easy listening music. Marlin is widely known as the father of the “Beautiful Music” radio format. Under his leadership, WDVR became the number one rated FM radio station in the country. His success would lead to general manager and program director positions at several large market stations along the Northeast Corridor, including Boston and New York. He founded Bonneville Broadcast Consultants in 1971 to syndicate the “easy listening” programming to more than 200 stations for nearly two decades.

In 1975, he married Alicia Blood, who he first met in 1957 while recording a community choir. Alicia was a professional singer and would be the voice of the enLighten station ID’s from 2004 to 2013. She passed away in 2019 after forty-three years of what friends said was “the perfect marriage”. Marlin is the father of three children, Scott, Linda and Patricia.

In 1998, Marlin learned of a new station platform called satellite radio. In 2000, he was hired to program the “40’s Big Band” channel for XM Radio, and in 2002 an easy listening channel. Then in 2004, out of subscriber demand, a Southern Gospel channel was added called enLighten. As management was not enthusiastic about the genre, they did not wish to hire a person specifically for the channel, so Marlin felt led to take on the challenge of managing and programming it. While he had always had a love for God’s music, he was not in touch with the current artists or their music. He called Singing News magazine and ordered the last six issues to learn who the current artists were. He then called Crossroads and Daywind asking for a box of CD’s for programming. He, along with former associate, “Country Dan Dixon,” attended a Bill Gaither “Homecoming” taping. They met several of the artists, including The Isaacs, who recorded what became the channel jingle: “We’re the Isaacs, and this is enLighten!” At that time, it was only offered online. A year later, the XM music channels were added to DirecTV, and enLighten was included. This led to the channel joining the satellite lineup on Easter Sunday, April 17, 2006. The response was tremendous! Singing News editor-in-chief, Jerry Kirksey, said at the time: “enLighten is the greatest thing that has happened to Southern Gospel since the “Gospel Singing Jubilee” television program began airing across America in 1964. This industry’s gratitude is unending. XM Radio is truly taking our music from sea to shining sea.”

While the primary emphasis was always on the popular artists and groups, Marlin believed there was a place for lesser-known groups, some that were already part of history and others just on the way up. In most cases, the decision was based on the message in the song over the familiarity of the group’s name. One such group at the time was The Hyssongs, who he first heard in Spring Hill, Florida, around 2006. Providentially, it was SGMA board member, Richard Hyssong, along with SGMA President, Arthur Rice, who notified Marlin of his induction.

Marlin served enLighten and Southern Gospel music until turning the channel over to Kyle Cantrell in 2013. He has garnished several awards in the broadcasting industry. In 2001, he was presented the American Broadcast Pioneer Award, and in 2015, was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame of Philadelphia. In 2012, enlighten was the recipient of the “Les Beasley Impact Award”.

Marlin’s life story is chronicled in his radio life memoir, “Radio: My Love, My Passion”. Today, he lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Marlin’s lifetime motto is “What can I do to bring joy to others?” His journey from “AM to XM” has certainly brought joy to untold millions!

He was inducted into the SGMA Hall of Fame in 2021.
Click here to see his induction video...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd1lkCX3zBg