After this Saturday night’s concert at Reardon Auditorium by Ernie Haase and Signature Sound, two members of the gospel quartet will have only 10 miles to travel to reach their homes in Lapel.
Baritone Doug Anderson moved back to his hometown soon after the group organized some six years ago. Then at Christmas 2007, bass Tim Duncan, wife Melissa and two teenage sons made Lapel their home also.
Duncan, however, says it wasn’t entirely because of Anderson that he settled in Lapel.
“It was our product guy, Frank Mills,” he said. “We were selling more product and we hired him, and he lives in Lapel. He found a barn here that we use to store our products and park the bus. It’s less than a minute away, so we load up the bus from here when we hit the road.”
Duncan, a Mississippi native, prefers small towns. “I hate the big city with all the rush traffic,” he drawled.
Lead singer Ryan Seaton lives in southern Indiana, leaving tenor Haase and the production manager to commute from Ohio to board the bus when they travel.
Duncan, 37, has been singing bass full time for 20 years, going from a local group to Poet Voices where he sang for three years. After Phil Cross dissolved Poet Voices temporarily, he heard of Haase’s efforts to put a group together. “I auditioned in Nashville, and the rest is history,” he recalled.
Signature Sound performs in Reardon Auditorium every year. “I like coming to Anderson,” Duncan affirmed. “We have a good, warm crowd there.”
The on-stage energy the group exhibits electrifies the crowd. “We’re a little different the way we move across the stage,” Duncan admitted. “It helps us draw a lot of young people.”
That entails regular physical workouts to keep in shape. Tim messed up a knee and doesn’t go in for the heavy-duty stuff, doing some jogging, walking and shooting around on the basketball court. “The other guys mean business on the basketball court,” he observed. “They go full court.”
Duncan had something of a scare recently when he experienced an apparent transient ischemic attack (TIA) soon after a lengthy plane flight from South Africa.
“I was scared at the moment,” he said, “but I’m OK now. I take a baby aspirin every day. They said it was an isolated incident. It reminds you to eat right and exercise.”
Duncan developed his bass singing style listening to such legends as J.D. Sumner, Tim Riley, London Parris (his vocal teacher in 1991) and of course George Younce, Haase’s late father-in-law.
“In my opinion George was the best bass singer,” Duncan said. “He had his own rhythm, a unique way of doing it.”
And Duncan wonders if his own best bass singing days may be ahead. “Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys told me J.D. didn’t really get low until after he was 40,” he explained. “So who knows?”
Jim Bailey’s column appears on Wednesday. He can be reached by e-mail at jameshenrybailey@earth link.net.
