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Label: Daywind
Song Titles: "Samaritan's Heart" (Greater Vision), "I'm Too Near Home" (Perrys), "It's Over" (Hoskins Family), "If It Couldn't Be Done" (Legacy Five), "Knock No More" (Brian Free & Assurance), "I Know The Plans I Have For You" (LordSong), "First Steps In A New Direction" (Chigger Hill Boys & Terri), "What Heaven's All About" (Triumphant Quartet), "Trading A Cross For A Crown" (Mike Bowling), "Let Him Shine" (McRaes), "When I Got Down On My Knees" (Lewis Family), "That's All That Matters" (Mark Trammell Trio), "My Keeper" Crabb Family), "When I Tell This World Goodbye" (Karen Harding), and "Another One Like Him" (Mercy's Mark Quartet)

Shout! Amen is the seventh compilation in the Shout! series. Patterned after the platinum selling WoW series, there were actually two Shout! brand releases in 2005. I reviewed Shout! Hymns in June 2005. (Click HERE to read that review.) The Hymns CD only offered 15 tracks, but Shout! Amen has returned to the traditional 2-disc/30-song format of previous releases.

The first three releases in the series were actually dated in advance like the WoW series. The original Shout! 2001 released in late 2000, for example, while Shout! 2002 and Shout! 2003 followed a similar release schedule. Shout! Amen is the fourth release to employ a word rather than a date. Previous versions were labled Glory (released in 2003), Victory (2004), and of course Hymns. While the dates were nice for keeping the CDs in order, I think the non-date naming scheme is better. If the songs were mostly new releases that hadn't hit radio yet, using the date would be fine, but these CDs are really more like a review of the previous year.

This year, Spring Hill has made excellent use of their 30 slots. Ten artists are from the Daywind family, eight are from Crossroads (Horizon/Sonlite), five are from Spring Hill, and the remaining seven are from various other labels and/or independent groups. You get a lot of music for the money. As in previous years, though, you have a much cheaper option that may take the wind out of Shout! Amen. There are 15 recently released tracks from Daywind artists on their three dollar Spread The Word 2005 sampler. Granted, Daywind's annual sampler is only available for a limited time while all seven compilations in the Shout! series are still in print, but the Daywind sampler typically includes coupons which can be applied to the purchase of the full length artist CDs whose songs are included on Spread The Word. You can't beat a deal like that, so Spread The Word gets 5 Stars easily.

Shout! Amen offers twice as much music, and their collection represents the top artists in Southern Gospel today. I wish it was a bit more "forward looking" like the Daywind sampler. The Shout! Amen CD contains Brian Free's popular "Long As I Got King Jesus" which maxed out on radio several months ago, for example. In contrast, the Daywind collection has Free's more recent "Knock No More," a cut from Triumphant Quartet's CD which isn't even out yet, and a track from the Perry's Remembering The Happy Goodmans project. Also, someone needs to inform the marketing geniuses at Spring Hill that the Dove Brothers are not singing "barber shop" style on "Movin' To The Rhythm Of The Gospel." If there are any barbershop male quartets in Southern Gospel (and I'm not sure if there are any at all), the Doves certainly aren't one of them.

Even so, if you don't buy a lot of Southern Gospel CDs throughout the year, Shout! Amen summarizes the year more adequately than any other collection I've seen. That's why I've rated it at 4 1/2 stars. I highly recommend both of these collections to anyone who is curious about today's Southern Gospel artists as well as to diehard SG fans who don't already own several of the original CDs that are represented.

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