Bates, Crabb Family to play at NIBROC

A Mississippi singer/songwriter with a voice like “mud” and an award-winning gospel music act were announced Tuesday as entertainment for the 2005 NIBROC FunFest, to be held in downtown Corbin August 9-13.
Country music rising star Jeff Bates is described in his bio as “a child of dubious origins, taken in by a Mississippi sharecropper and the Pentecostal minister’s daughter who was his wife, the dark-haired darker-eyed songwriter seems like the stuff country cliches are made of.”
Except he’s no cliche.
The New York Times has likened Bates to Barry White with a down-to-earth, non-sugarcoated approach to his music. Bruce Carpenter, Executive Director of the Greater Corbin Chamber of Commerce and principal organizer of NIBROC, calls him a “Conway Twitty” sound-a-like.
“He’s had two or three hits already,” Carpenter said. “I got to see him in January in Cincinnati while I was up there for a tourism event. I started working on getting him to Corbin as soon as I got back to town.”
Carpenter said during an autograph session following Bates’ performance, he predicted that he would be able to schedule him for NIBROC this year.
The 37-year-old performer is touring this summer in support of his newest CD Rainbow Man with songs like “Long, Slow Kisses,” “The Love Song,” and “Country Enough.” Rainbow Man was given an “A” grade in review in Entertainment Weekly Magazine.
The RCA recording artist will play Saturday night, the closing night, of NIBROC at 9:30 p.m.
On Wednesday of the festival, The Crabb Family will thrill crowds with their own special version of southern gospel and contemporary Christian Music.
The group, started by Gerald and Kathy Crabb and also featuring their children Jason, Kelly, Adam, Aaron and Terah, have performed at venues as wide-ranging as a rural church in Kentucky to an audience of 800,000.
Though primarily a southern gospel group, their latest record, entitled “Driven,” features a variety of styles and genres, enabling them to reach a more vast audience.
The Crabb Family was given the 2004 Dove Award for Best Southern Gospel Recorded Song (The Cross) and Best Southern Gospel Recorded Album (The Walk). They received Grammy nominations in 2004 for Best Southern, Bluegrass, or Country Gospel Album (The Walk).
The Walk was No. 1 on Soundscan for 13 weeks in a row after its release, and has been No. 1 18 times. They’ve had 14 No. 1 songs on the national radio charts.
The Crabb Family are regular guests on the Grand Ole Opry and have been named one of the 25 most important artists shaping Christian music today by CCM magazine.
They received the 2003 Dove Award for Southern Gospel Album and Song of the Year. The group has had 14 total No. 1 songs including “Jesus Will Do What You Can’t,” “Please Come Down to Me,” and “That’s No Mountain.”
NIBROC organizers added Wednesday night as Christian music night last year to fill a void in the festival’s musical offerings. Carpenter said there won’t be as many performers this year because of time constraints that occurred in 2004.
“We just ran into a time factor because we had so many groups and because some of the churches get out later than others.”
Carpenter said musical acts for Thursday and Friday night will be announced in the near future.
For more information on Jeff Bates, check out www. jeffbates.net, or the Crabb Family, go to www.thecrabbfamily.com.