Group gets together for weekend of fun and Southern Gospel

By John Herndon, KentuckySings.com

It can be amazing to reminisce about the circles of life and the people involved that become an integral part of one’s journey.

Such is the case with Firm Foundation Quartet. 

I first heard Firm Foundation at the Kentucky State Fair in 2003. That day, a group of young guys from Owensboro wowed an audience packed with southern gospel veterans to win first place in the fair’s annual gospel quartet contest. 

Let’s just say I was amazed at Firm Foundation’s sound. However, they were a regional group based in Owensboro, about 150 miles from my central Kentucky home. Social media was in its infancy and I knew of no way to keep up with a group that had captured my attention in a manner few others had done.

So, eventually, I lost track of Firm Foundation. I just remembered they had been dynamite at the state fair.

Fast forward to 2020 when another writer alerted me to the music of Steve Bridgmon, who was making his name in Christian country music. When I looked him up on Facebook, I immediately recognized him.

“This guy was the lead singer for Firm Foundation many years ago!”

And that started a great friendship with Bridgmon, who is the founder of Firm Foundation and was named the Male Vocalist of the Year by the Inspirational Country Music Association on May 29.  Bridgmon has been featured on Kentucky Sings and helped make it possible for us to attend the ICMA Awards ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.

Though Bridgmon is currently one of the top names in Christian Country, he waters those deep southern gospel roots with the annual Firm Foundation Reunion Tour. It’s a series of concerts in Kentucky, southern Indiana and other areas that served as the group’s natural base until disbanding in 2012.

While Bridgmon is the only member of the state fair winning group to be a part of the two, three of the four who made up the group near the end of its run will be reuniting for the weekend tour. Bridgmon, baritone Josh Teasley and Anthony Davis, who sang bass with Firm Foundation for nearly a decade, will all be part of the lineup when the 2024 version of the Reunion Tour gets underway on Thursday, June 20 at Lowell Avenue Baptist Church in Campbellsville.

Tenor Jericho McCoy, who stepped in when Josh Brown could not make the tour two years ago, returns to sing the high notes.

We caught up with Teasley and McCoy recently at the ICMA Awards Show, where Firm Foundation had the honor of singing the National Anthem and simply asked “Why?”

Why come back for a summer weekend when they could be heading to beach? Why come back to travel around small towns to sing?

“I still have a heart for music and will be there to support Steve,” said Teasley, who sang with Firm Foundation for two years.  He will be making the trip from Loranger, Louisiana, about 45 minutes north of New Orleans, where he’s lived since Firm Foundation came off the road in 2012.

A vocal music teacher at Taylor County High School in Campbellsville, McCoy is eager to get on stage with Firm Foundation again. “I just do it for the joy of singing Southern Gospel music,” he said. “It’s a great weekend. I get together with some good guys and have some fun singing quartet harmonies.”

While Bridgmon and Davis are well known to gospel music fans – Davis also spent a decade singing nationally with Tribute Quartet – McCoy is also a veteran of the genre.

“I grew up singing in a family group that traveled and sang around Kentucky a lot,” he recalled. “I got my start in Southern Gospel music. I went on and joined the choir in school and went on to study music. Now I teach music full-time.

“I grew up listening to groups such as Gold City.”

McCoy did not know Bridgmon until being recommended by pianist Jamie Lawrence, a professor at McCoy’s alma mater, Campbellsville University. “(Bridgmon) said, ‘Would you come sing tenor for us?’ he said of that first phone call. “I said, ‘Yes, send me the set list and I will learn the songs and come sing. He keeps inviting me back, so I guess he liked what he heard.”

Teasley is rarely on stage these days. “I might sing a little with the radio driving down the road,” he laughed.

Yet Teasley uses the weekend to share his amazing testimony. After relocating from Owensboro to Louisiana, he met Ashley, whom he married in 2013. But after less than seven years of marriage, Ashley succumbed to cancer, leaving Josh and three young children. 

While juggling his schedule as a firefighter with his roles of dad and mom, Josh sought help from God. “Being without a wife and trying to figure out how to raise my kids, God just put this lady in my life,” he says of Amber who helped by watching the children while Josh was working. “Then I started to notice how the kids would interact with her and that got my attention.”

Josh and Amber were married in 2022 and have added another child to the family. “While I think about Ashley from time to time, I deeply love Amber and am so thankful God put her in my life.”

Teasley shares his testimony hoping to draw people to closer to Christ. “Remember that God is in the restoring business.”

Ultimately, that message of restoration in Christ is what Firm Foundation Quartet is all about in the reunion tour.

After all, they want people to build on the firm foundation of Jesus.

FIRM FOUNDATION REUNION TOUR 2024

June 20: Lowell Avenue Baptist Church, Campbellsville, Ky., 7 p.m., EDT

June 21: Hallelujah Friday, First Baptist Church, Owensboro, Ky., 6 p.m., CDT

June 22: Living Hope Free Methodist Church, West Unity, Ohio, 6 p.m., EDT

June 23: Heartland Community Church, West Lafayette, Ind., 6 p.m., EDT.

Collin White will be the opening artist each night.