Every July for 60 years the Southern Gospel group, The Inspirations, hosts Singing in the Smokies, a festival that draws thousands to their native Bryson City. The quartet itself formed two years before the first gathering. Today, The Inspirations are considered one of the most important groups ever to sing and record Southern gospel music. They recently won eight Singing News Fan Awards at the 2024 National Quartet Convention including Favorite Quartet. Southern gospel is a form that, despite its generic-sounding name, actually refers to a very specific quartet-based style with carefully orchestrated harmonies. The Inspirations describe themselves as “an enthusiastic, sincere, clean-cut group of fundamental conservative Christian gentlemen with a desire and an objective to witness to a needful and sinful world through the medium of Gospel Music.” They have sold more than one million copies of their sixty albums. Their sound is now known in the world of Christian music as the Smoky Mountain style of Southern gospel quartet singing.