Impresario Denny Keitzman: Paying Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain You may not recognize his name, but some of the leading Christian music festivals wouldn’t be the same without his skills and talents. He is Denny Keitzman, the man behind Strait Gate Productions and a true veteran of the contemporary Christian movement. He’s been doing it longer and better than just about anyone else. And in this interview, we find out that where you end up doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with where you began. Or does it?

Most of our readers are familiar with some of the events that you’ve been involved with – Creation East, Kingdom Bound, GMA Week … so before we get into what you’re doing now, I’m wondering how you got started in this – musician, music fan … engineer? None of those. I started producing events for the counterculture movement. I didn’t have any training, but I thought that producing a musical event would be a good way of getting people together and communicating a message. I did everything from booking the hall and the bands, drawing and printing the posters to hanging them and emceeing the show. I was doing festivals and didn’t know it. Did you know anything about audio and stage production? Nothing. All I had was motivation. I could look at a situation logically and know what needed to be done. I did those kinds of events for about five years.

Through a series of circumstances, I became a Christian in 1973. A group of friends came to me and said, “You’ve done such a good job promoting rock and roll, why don’t you turn your talents to the Lord?” I thought that was a pretty novel idea and opened a Christian coffeehouse that year, with live music every Friday and Saturday nights. I got involved with a group called The Fellowship of Contemporary Christian Ministries. Their ministry was music – whether it was radio, a coffeehouse, concerts, record stores. There really wasn’t a “support group” for contemporary Christian music back then – keep in mind that the GMA was mostly Southern gospel quartets at the time. That association led to friendships with a couple of guys who wanted to start an annual Christian festival. My wife and I were youth leaders in our church, so we loaded up about four vans with kids headed for central Pennsylvania and that was the first Creation Festival. You go all the way back to the beginning then. That’s right. 1979 was the first one. I was absolutely blown away by the five thousand people that were there. So I told them “I’m coming back next year. Put me to work. I want to volunteer.” They said, “OK, why don’t you come back next year and help our Stage Manager?” The next year, the stage manager was having some personal problems and couldn’t be on site very much, so I was kind of thrown into it. I’d done all of these things before, but nothing on this scale and as small as the industry was back then, these were still major, major acts. Everything was different. But I took to it like a duck to water. And they ended up hiring me in 1980. So I’m doing the Creation Festival, and I’m doing my jail and prison ministry and about four years into it, two of the major artists came to me and said, “We need to really pray about having you participate in some of the other festivals that are popping up. They don’t have the equipment they say they’ll have. They’re running two hours late and everybody’s getting mad.” I’d never really thought about something like that. I put together a letter about my credentials, sent it to six festivals and have never, in over thirty years, had to advertise again. How did you manage all of this? You were still involved with your ministry, right? Keep in mind I have a lot of flexibility. I did four festivals, which took me out about three weeks altogether. Plus I took the money and gave it to the (jail and prison) ministry, so they had no problem with it. By that time, the ministry had grown to include a number of other community services, including a telephone crisis center, maternity home and semi-independent living center. So I’m doing about four or five of these festivals …

We’re talking about 1988 or 1989? Amy Grant’s people approached me about going out on tour. They were offering me more money than I’d ever made in my life. It was like a dream come true. Except for one small thing. I wanted to do it with every fiber in my body but God said, “Your daughter’s a senior in high school, captain of the volleyball team and editor of the yearbook and you’re going to miss her whole senior year. Is that what you want to do?” I couldn’t justify it. I honestly thought that ended my one shot at the “big time”. But. My success has grown tenfold. Last year, I was the Tour Manager for MercyMe. Amy Grant was the opening act. Back in ‘89, though, I was at Creation with this ragtag group of kids who wanted to go onstage. Eddie Degarmo of Degarmo & Key wanted to know if it was OK for them to go on for ten minutes in front of them. That was dctalk, just starting out. Three guys with microphones, doing their rap thing.

That happened at two or three festivals. The next year, they were on the bill and came to me and said they wanted me to go on a 28-city tour. I’d never done a tour. We played all over the country. Before the tour was over, they said “Can you do our summer tour for us?” Before that tour was over, they said “We’re gonna open for Michael W. Smith in the fall – can you do that one for us, too?” I ended up doing everything that dctalk ever did from that point on. I moved to Nashville because of them. When we were off the road, things were falling through the cracks a little – so I said to my wife, “I think God wants us to move to Nashville So Strait Gate today is … Well, it started out back in the coffeehouse days. We did these concerts in the park and I didn’t want to put the name of the coffeehouse on it because everyone knew it was a Christian coffeehouse and I didn’t necessarily want everyone to think of these concerts in those terms. I put a little tagline at the bottom of those posters, saying “Another Quality Strait Gate Production”, so when I started doing shows, I needed a company name and that’s how it started. That name’s been around since 1973 and today, in terms of pure volume; we probably do more production in the Christian market than anyone else. Now, you’re doing events and tours. What’s the mix? Where’s the needle pointing? Definitely events. I did sixteen festivals this summer. So how did you hook up with Shure? A couple of years ago, I was producing all the Ryman Auditorium shows at the GMA. That room’s got a great vibe – you can really soak up the nostalgia there. It isn’t exactly a very production-friendly room, though. Anyway, I was taking a break at lunch and this guy walks up, saying he’s looking for me. And that was Doug Gould from Shure. He asked me what I needed and I told him that wireless microphones are always a problem at festivals. Sound companies either buy cheap ones that get trashed or good ones that get trashed and by the time I get them, they’re … trash. I wanted a set of wireless mics that I could carry to festivals. So now I have a set of eight ULXP handheld microphones and all the stuff. I bought a rack and rack-mounted them. We take four of them, if not all eight, to every festival – sometimes four going to this event and four going that event. Do artists ever bring or specify mics? Not usually, unless it’s a headliner and then I get them anything they want. That’s why I have Shure mics. It’s the same approach I use with drum kits. If you’re the fourth band in the line-up, you’re going to use my drum kit, which is the best one I can find. You can change out your cymbals. You can change your snare drum or kick pedal, but you’re going to use my drum kit. It’s the same thing with microphones. I wouldn’t have a cheap, crummy microphone. Shure mics and in-ears are more durable and more reliable. The SM58 is still the standard in the industry. If I had my way, I’d also carry my own drum mics. I like the Shure sound in drum mics. Every microphone company has good mics and some audio companies like different brand microphones for different applications and they’ll have microphones from three different companies on the drum kit. I prefer a sound company to come in with all Shure, all the way across the board. Just give me a bunch of Beta 87s for vocals, 57s for guitar amps and so on. The quality is there. Almost all of your work is in the Christian area. That’s true. You know, you go out on the road and it really takes a toll on you. I’ve got to be committed mentally and spiritually to the message. I’ve got to believe in the message, and what is being left in the community. You haven’t done much punk or heavy metal then … No, if some of those acts called me up, I wouldn’t even return the call. What’s on the horizon for you? I’ve got a gospel tour that I’m doing right now. Then I’m doing a tour with a world-music acoustic group out of Texas. They’re bringing in five guys from Ecuador, two guys from India and a guy from Brazil. I’m really looking forward to it. That should present some interesting audio challenges. Maybe. But that’s what’s kept things interesting for the past thirty years. Shure thanks Denny for taking the time to talk to us on a post-festival, pre-tour autumn day in Nashville. You can learn more about the vast spectrum of Denny‘s work done at www.str8gate.com.

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