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When the church choir started wailing in his tiny farming town of Lafayette, Ga., the 2-year-old boy would make a break for it.
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As soon as his mom looked away, little Todd Suttles scurried up the aisle at Mount Zion Baptist Church and waited patiently until someone shouted:
“Give the little baby the microphone!”
He has been holding onto that microphone for 51 years.
For the last eight years, Suttles has been singing for the storied Southern gospel group Gaither Vocal Band. It’s a sweet bookend to his early days sneaking onto the stage of his hometown church just south of Chattanooga.
For most of his life, though, Suttles has been a strength and conditioning football coach, international weight lifting champion and a sought-after athletic trainer — all the while standing only 5 feet 6 inches tall.
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“He’s like a little tank,” said Dejuan Buford, a defensive back for the MTSU Blue Raiders in the late ’80s and Suttles’ fraternity brother.
“Because of his size, it was a challenge to show everyone he’s stronger than they were. And he usually was!”
Throughout his strength coach days at MTSU and Vanderbilt, though, Suttles never stopped singing — in church, in the weight room, at friends’ weddings, in the car, and sometimes in a studio as a background singer.
One of those studio gigs led to Suttles meeting Southern gospel stalwart Bill Gaither — and Suttles switched careers at 45, turning his lifelong love of singing God’s praises into a vocation.
Here’s the journey of how that happened.
Flipping logs on the farm
Suttles’ strength training started early when he was one of seven kids working the family farm, where his mom and dad grew sorghum, beans, sugar cane, corn and more. His dad also ran a tree-cutting business.
“We’d drag logs, flip logs end over end to get them out of the woods,” Suttles said, with his seemingly never fading smile getting a little bigger.
“On the farm, we’d roll and flop and stack — cinderblocks, tires, hay bales and more,” he said. “My dad believed in hard work, and we never sat around.”
Dad also believed in praising Jesus through song and, shortly after Suttles made his church debut at age 2, the boy joined the Suttles Family band. By age 7, Todd Suttles had done his first performances in prison and nursing homes.
His father really didn’t like the kids sitting around. If they weren’t working or singing, the family, living paycheck to paycheck, helped neighbors by cutting their yards or working on their farms or donating any food leftover after harvest to those who needed it.
Whether the needy were members of their church or not, Suttles said.
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“We’re all souls; we’re all part of the human race,” he quoted his dad saying. “Everybody needs watering; always look for the good.”
Suttles sang throughout his childhood. When Suttles sang once at his aunt’s church in Chattanooga, the preacher was so impressed that he took up a collection right then to get the 6-year-old a new suit.
“This kid is gonna sing all over the world one day,” the preacher told the congregation.
That prophecy wouldn’t come true for another 32 years.
While Suttles kept singing — he made the all-state chorus in high school — he really loved sports, excelling at wrestling and football.
“At that time, I wasn’t into singing,” he said. “I was singing because of the gift I had, and my dad said I had to use my gift.”
But when several of his friends made the MTSU football team, Suttles decided to turn down a singing scholarship at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to join them in Murfreesboro.
A world champ in bench press, deadlift and squats
He badly wanted to be part of the Blue Raiders football team, and eventually, he found a spot — as an unpaid student assistant for MTSU strength coach E.J. “Doc” Kreis.
Suttles started painting walls, filming workouts, cleaning dumbbells, and lifting weights himself. Kreis told Suttles he wanted to help the teen become a world champion weight lifter.
And that’s what happened.
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Between football games and exercise science classes, Suttles bulked up and won local and state contests and a national championship before, at 128 pounds, he won a worldwide event in 1992 in France in bench press, deadlift and squat.
That gave him even more credibility with MTSU athletes, and the university offered him a graduate assistant job in the weight room as Suttles earned his master’s degree.
Throughout his time at MTSU, he never stopped singing, friends and coaches said.
“He sang ballads to ladies, he sang in the fraternity house, sang in the locker room, sang in the dorm,” Buford said. “We all knew what kind of pipes he had on him.”
After getting his master’s degree in 1994, Suttles took a job with Vanderbilt’s football team before moving on to other sports on campus. He stayed at Vanderbilt for 21 years and shortly after leaving, a gospel singer friend, Buddy Greene, introduced him to Bill Gaither.
“I told Buddy I was looking for a baritone/bass singer, and Buddy mentioned Todd,” Gaither told The Tennessean. Told me he’s got a sweet spirit and he’s a really great guy to be around.”
Suttles had only one thought when his friend mentioned a possible gig with the Gaither Vocal Band: “I’d love to meet Bill Gaither. He’s in the hymn book!”
The courtship moved slowly — Settles and Gaither met several times over two months, sometimes talking, sometimes singing with a couple of guys who might be hanging around.
2,000 goodbyes
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Gaither invited Suttles to a Gaither Vocal Band show at Lipscomb University in December 2013, and just a few weeks later, Gaither invited Suttles to sing with the group for a few dates in Texas.
Excited, Suttles started listening to Gaither Vocal Band songs over and over, as much as five hours a day, every day. “Singing is muscle memory,” Suttles said, “just like weight training.”
Gaither even gave Suttles a solo in front of 2,000 at a church in Longview, Texas.
In his head, Suttles heard his dad’s voice: “When you’re singing, whether it’s two people or 20,000, it’s the same song. What’s your message?”
Suttles nailed the solo, and he has been with the group ever since, one of the most personable and popular members in the band.
“We perform on cruises, and when he was first with us, I said to my wife, ‘Gloria, you watch, by the end of this cruise, he will have talked to all 2,000 people on board.’ And he did!” Gaither said.
“When we left and were on the dock, all the people said, ‘See ya, Todd! See ya next year!'”
The infectious smile and jubilant spirit draw people to them, whether students, clients or fans, his friends said.
“There’s a lot of happiness and a lot of Jesus in him,” Buford said. “That’s gonna make anybody smile.”
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Suttles, 53, said that comes from his faith and the mission and messages drilled into him by his dad and mom.
“We’re all in this together. So what can we do to better ourselves and our community?” Suttles said.
“And let’s get some joy around us! We’re all just souls.”
Reach Brad Schmitt at [email protected] or 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.
Concert in Murfreesboro
What: Gaither Vocal Band performs at a Murfreesboro church
When: 7 p.m. May 6
Where: World Outreach Church,
Cost: $25 and $30
To buy tix: PremierProductionsTickets.com
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHO
