Here is another snippet of the recording from our roundtable discussion at Acafest 2012. Duane Adams shares a particular memory from an evening in Dallas, TX at the late, great Footloose. We were blessed to be able to sing many different, powerful songs. The most powerful, I believe, were some of the songs that came direct from scripture. His Righteousness, from the Sweet Fellowship album, was one of those. This is the story of one song on one night.
Acappella Memories: Duane Adams at Acafest 2012 Pt. 2
August 13, 2012 by 1 Comment
Acappella Memories: Duane Adams at Acafest 2012
July 31, 2012 by 4 Comments
At Acappella’s recent 30th anniversary event, which took place at Acafest 2012, everyone had the chance to share their memories from their days on the road. The groups were divided into different periods, and the early 90’s Acappella had their chance to share on July 2nd, 2012 at 8:30 AM.
Several interesting stories were shared, and I’ll post more in the future. Here is one humorous story shared by Duane Adams relating Acappella’s encounter with a “spiritual retreat center” in New England.
Acappella Memories: Alvin!
February 29, 2012 by 3 Comments
As I mentioned in my last Acappella Memories post, we had a rule: Never stop the song. Most people will never catch the mistake if you just finish the song. At best, if they catch it, they will forget it. Just finish the song. This led to some hilarious outcomes.
I remember one concert where Kevin Schaffer came barreling out of the curtain at the edge of the stage and tripped over the legs of the backstage lights. He spilled onto the floor. Kevin, as only he could do, morphed it into a hilarious pose, laying on his side with his head propped up on his arm. He looked like… well, I probably shouldn’t say what he looked like. But we all thought it was hilarious, and all this while the song continued. Kevin turned a potential disaster into a funny event. The only problem was that we were singing for a somewhat new audience who didn’t know Kevin’s personality yet. So, they didn’t get it.
Oh well. You can’t win them all.
Cincinnati: the Twilight Zone
There were certain areas in the country where our popularity just exploded. I mentioned South Bend, IN in an earlier post. Another area similar to this was the Cincinnati-Dayton area. We sang there annually in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Oftentimes we would do 2 (and sometimes 3) concerts per weekend in the same venue.
Brennan Dean was our promoter for that area and he was very good. We always sang at a church in Middletown, halfway between Cincinnati and Dayton. The place sat about 2700 people packed out, and it was almost always packed out. One particular Sunday afternoon in late 1989 was no different.
We had just released the album Growing Up in the Lord and were performing several songs from that album, most notably Water From the Well where all the kids in the building would join us on stage. But that’s another story. We kicked off the song I Can Walk when it happened.
Water from the Well
December 12, 2011 by 2 Comments
In 1989, we (Acappella) released the album Growing Up in the Lord. It was originally intended to be a children’s album, but as the production continued it became clear to us that it would be much more. Consequently, it ended up somewhat of a hybrid (in my opinion). Not to say that it was a poor album… far from it. It remains a favorite of many people, even though I believe it is out of print.
One of the lasting favorite songs from the album is the song Water from the Well. It featured a solo by Keith’s daughter, Kimberly. She did a great job on it, especially at the tender age of 5 (I think). As the tour began (actually, it never ended… but that’s another story) we started adding songs from the album to the concert set. Water from the Well seemed a natural addition.
The trouble was, how do we handle the kid’s solo part? Wayburn’s oldest son, Brent, could handle it and he toured with us, as did all the families. We decided to take it just a little bigger. If you saw our concert during this time period, you know what I’m talking about. 30 minutes into the 1st set, we just paused everything and invited all the kids ages 3 through the 3rd grade up to the stage to sing this song with us.
