I was privileged to attend the Paid In Full 26th Anniversary Homecoming concert this past weekend. It is extraordinary that the members of this group can be so young and have accomplished such a milestone as reaching a 26th anniversary! Three friends, Jeff Crews, Bradley Littlejohn, and Lance Moore, started this group in 1991 while they were in high school, and two of the original members are still traveling with the group today. Jeff dropped out a decade ago, and Brock White has been there ever since. At the anniversary singing at their home church of Hillcrest Baptist in New Albany, Mississippi, they had special guest Triumphant Quartet. The evening was filled with fabulous singing!

Paid In Full keeps their homecoming concerts fresh by doing something different each year. This year they took at least one song from all of the albums they have recorded – except a couple of their very early albums. They also treated us to seven songs that they haven’t recorded yet, including several for which Andrew Ishee had produced tracks for them. This year Lance’s three children, Maggie, Jake and Lizzie, performed an a capella version of Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. And when the laptop running their tracks had a hiccup, Paid In Full just performed an a capella version of Farther Along while they waited for a reboot!

Here are some of the highlights.   (More videos are posted on the Paid In Full Facebook page.)

• Jesus In Me – Brock wrote this song and they haven’t released a recording of it yet.
• Farther Along
• Jesus My Own
• If I Had to Choose Again

Triumphant Quartet had never appeared in New Albany, Mississippi and there was about half of the audience that had not seen them before. In fact, a couple of people I talked to in the line to get into the church had not heard of the group! How can that happen when they have been the reigning Favorite Traditional Male Quartet since 2009?!? By the end of the evening, I think they had about 1,000 new fans, judging by the responses to their songs!

Triumphant is also a group with very little turnover in personnel. Its singers are still David Sutton, Clayton Inman, Scotty Inman, and Eric Bennett, who have been there since the beginning of the group. Pianist Aaron Dishman has been with them for about a year now. They sang a great combination of new and old songs, including The Old White Flag and I Wish It Would Rain, which were favorites of this crowd, too.

Here are some of their highlights:

• Chain Breaker
• Hallelujah
• I Wish It Would Rain
• Sweet Beulah Land – David and Aaron – Harmonica and piano

I’m really not sure how Paid In Full will out-do this event next year, but I’m certainly willing to drive over to Mississippi again to find out!!