Keith Lancaster is a singer, songwriter, composer, producer and executive at The Acappella Company.
In 1982, Lancaster began pursuit of his dream to spread the Gospel through a cappella music by creating Acappella Ministries in his hometown of Paris, Tennessee. [1] Through this ministry, a quartet was formed, that ultimately became known as the musical group Acappella. [2]
Acappella released its first album with the original name of His Image quartet in 1982, produced by Lancaster, who also sang lead. Acappella released several more albums through The Acappella Company before Lancaster stepped back from an on-stage role in 1988, to dedicate his time to song writing and production for the group. Al Pratt, who MC'd the 1994 Christian Acappella Music Awards credited Acappella and Boyz II Men with taking Christian a capella music "to a mainstream level." [3]
In 1986, Lancaster put together the vocal group Acappella Vocal Band (AVB) to augment the ministry of Acappella. By this time, both groups began recording and performing primarily original music, much of which was composed by Lancaster. Each group took a unique focus to spread the appeal of the ministry. Acappella focused on adult contemporary, while AVB was geared towards a more youthful market.
The ministry Lancaster founded also formed The Acappella Company, which serves as an umbrella organization for all of his related projects, such as Praise And Harmony, Acappella, AVB, The Vocal Union and Durant.
Lancaster continues to produce various projects, work as a worship minister at the Cullman Church of Christ in Cullman, Alabama, and is heavily involved with The Acappella Company's leadership, but is now focusing on traveling the world and presenting his "Praise & Harmony Workshops" at various churches who want to improve their singing and worship.
Lancaster is married to Sharon, and has four children (Melissa, Kimberly, Anthony, and Allison) who are actively involved in the work of The Acappella Company's vocal bands. [4]
Lancaster was honored with the A Cappella Music Award for "Lifetime Achievement" on May 19, 2018.
Music performed a cappella, less commonly a capella, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term a cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato musical styles. In the 19th century, a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony, coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists, led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music. The term is also used, rarely, as a synonym for alla breve.
William James Gaither is an American singer and songwriter of Southern gospel and contemporary Christian music. He has written numerous popular Christian songs with his wife Gloria; he is also known for performing as part of the Bill Gaither Trio and the Gaither Vocal Band. In the 1990s, his career gained a resurgence, as popularity grew for the Gaither Homecoming series. In 2023 he released a secular music album with the Gaither Vocal Band entitled “Love Songs”.
GLAD is one of the pioneers of Christian pop/rock and a cappella music, forming as a progressive rock group in 1972 and discovering a large audience for their a cappella music in 1988. Today, with over 1.5 million albums sold, they continue to perform concerts and release occasional recordings. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel noted that when most contemporary Christian music reflected the "showbiz" style of Southern California or Nashville's country or gospel music, GLAD emphasized jazz, rhythm & blues, and fusion. As CCM Magazine described it, "GLAD's elegant vocals helped set them apart from other pioneers of Contemporary Christian music. That vocal sound has since evolved into a complex, self-sustaining life form of its own..."
Acappella Vocal Band (AVB) was a vocal group put together by Keith Lancaster in 1986 to augment the vocal group Acappella. AVB's popularity and ministry quickly grew, prompting Lancaster to launch AVB as a full-time touring group in 1988. AVB went through various lineup and stylistic changes before disbanding in 2000.
Acappella is an all-male contemporary Christian vocal group founded in 1982 by Keith Lancaster, who has been the singer, songwriter, and producer throughout the group's history. The group only consists of vocalists who sing in a cappella style without instrumental accompaniment.
FFH, also known as Far from Home, are an American contemporary Christian band from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Deke Sharon is an American singer, arranger, composer, director, producer, author, coach, pioneer, and teacher of a cappella music, and is one of the leaders and promoters of the contemporary a cappella community. He has been referred to as "the father of contemporary a cappella" by some authors, and "the godfather of a cappella" by others.
Steve Green is an American Christian music singer.
The Martins are a Christian music vocal trio composed of three siblings: Joyce Martin Sanders, Jonathan Martin, and Judy Martin Hess.
The Cathedral Quartet, also known as the Cathedrals, was an American southern gospel quartet who performed from 1964 to December 1999. The group's final lineup consisted of Glen Payne (lead), George Younce (bass), Ernie Haase (tenor), Scott Fowler, and Roger Bennett.
AVB may refer to:
Jerome Eugene Lawson was an American singer, producer, musical arranger and performer, best known as the original lead singer of the Persuasions.
Eugene Thomas Puerling was an American vocal performer and arranger. Puerling created and led two prominent vocal quartets, The Hi-Lo's and The Singers Unlimited. He was nominated for 14 Grammys and awarded the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices in 1982.
First Call is an American contemporary Christian music (CCM) group, consisting of Mel Tunney, Marty McCall, and Bonnie Keen. During their career spanning more than 30 years, the group worked with many noted producers and arrangers including David Maddux, Steven Tayler, Dan Keen, Greg Nelson, Keith Thomas, Neal Joseph, Wayne Kirkpatrick, Phil Naish and Darrell Brown.
Vocal harmony is a style of vocal music in which a consonant note or notes are simultaneously sung as a main melody in a predominantly homophonic texture. Vocal harmonies are used in many subgenres of European art music, including Classical choral music and opera and in the popular styles from many Western cultures ranging from folk songs and musical theater pieces to rock ballads. In the simplest style of vocal harmony, the main vocal melody is supported by a single backup vocal line, either at a pitch which is above or below the main vocal line, often in thirds or sixths which fit in with the chord progression used in the song. In more complex vocal harmony arrangements, different backup singers may sing two or even three other notes at the same time as each of the main melody notes, mostly with a consonant, pleasing-sounding thirds, sixths, and fifths.
A cappella is used as an adjective and adverb that mean unaccompanied singing.
Kaichiro Kitamura is a Japanese vocal percussionist, singer, and music teacher who has performed vocal percussion, in both a cappella and instrumental groups. He specializes in jazz but has also done rock, pop, and RnB.
Haven Today is a national broadcast Christian radio program. The radio program was founded in 1934 as The Haven of Rest by Paul Myers, who became a radio personality known for Christian ministry. The program has had four hosts: Myers, Paul Evans, Raymond C. Ortlund Sr., and Charles Morris. The daily broadcast is currently on over 600 stations in North America and overseas.
David Lee Wright is a mathematics professor, barbershop arranger, and Associate Director of the Ambassadors of Harmony (AOH). He is a noted a cappella historian and arranger, especially in the barbershop style where in 12 of 18 years from 1999 to 2016, his arrangements resulted in chorus gold medals at the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) International Contest. Wright travels the world as a barbershop historian, coach, and mathematics lecturer.