NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Fes Robertson, retired director of the former Genevox Music Group at LifeWay Christian Resources, died Monday, Dec. 31, following injuries he sustained in a fall at his home on Christmas Eve. He was 67.
A colorful character and Kenny Rogers look-alike, Robertson stayed busy throughout the 2001 Christmas season as director of the Senior Adult Ministries Choir at First Baptist Church, Nashville, Tenn., according to Mark Edwards, music minister at First Baptist.
“Fes Robertson loved church music and he gave his life to it and those involved in that ministry. He was both model and mentor to more than one generation of Southern Baptist ministers of music,” Edwards said. “His influence reached far and wide.”
Robertson retired from the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (now LifeWay) in October 1991 after nearly 25 years.
He was both a consultant and supervisor in the Church Music Department and was first director of the former Genevox Music Group, according to Mark Blankenship, director of Worship and Music at LifeWay.
“He was well loved by all the people here in the music department and by the state music leadership as well as people in the Christian music industry in Nashville,” Blankenship said. “He was a wonderful tenor and a great friend to many people.”
Robertson was past president of the Southern Baptist Church Music Conference and involved in the leadership of the Church Music Publishers Association.
In a 1987 story about Robertson becoming director of LifeWay’s music publishing department, the tenor recalls his “first real excitement about church music” occurred when he met B.B. McKinney, the famed Southern Baptist music leader and composer, at a music conference in Kentucky. At the time, Robertson had just graduated from high school.
“I knew I didn’t want to be a preacher or a missionary, but I hadn’t known there was anything else you could be,” he said when discovering his calling to the field of music.
A native of McLean County, Kentucky, Robertson is survived by his wife of 44 years, Barbara Fike Robertson, three daughters, a brother and six grandchildren.
Memorial services will be held Thursday, Jan. 3, at First Baptist Church, Nashville. Memorial contributions can be made to the First Baptist Church of Nashville music ministry.
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at https://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: FES ROBERTSON.
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