Brian Free and Assurance

Brian Free and Assurance sit within the Southern gospel tradition, and their story begins with a singer who spent eleven years at the centre of another group. Free performed with the Gold City Quartet from 1982 until 1993, and that same year he formed Assurance, bringing that experience into a group of his own. His own return to the line-up in 2001, after an absence, is the thread that runs through much of what follows.

The group's personnel history is as much a story of change as of continuity. Kevin Price sang lead from 1993 to 1995, followed by Kevin McCaw until 1997 and Randy Crawford, who later joined The Kingsmen Quartet, until 1998. Free left in 1998 and returned in 2001, the same year Bill Shivers took the lead role, which he still holds. Derrick Selph spent two stints at baritone, from 2003 to 2009 and again from 2010 to 2013, while Mike Rogers, Jake Anglin and most recently Dayton Gay, formerly of The Perrys, have filled that role since. Across the group's life it has released multiple albums.