Roots Music

Beautifully performed by Ry Cooder on his The Prodigal Son album and written by International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor member Carter Stanley, the song Harbor Of Love comes from the early days of Stanley’s primitive baptist roots. For him, both bluegrass and religion originated out of the remote coal and timber fields of southwestern Virginia.

As a songwriter, Stanley was known for his straightforward lyrics. On Harbor Of Love, he tells of a coming time with a great judgment morning. When a savior will welcome you home. Will you be prepared for the journey to heaven on a great ship that carries God’s chosen one’s home.

After the great ship anchor’s in the harbor of love, the song gets personal by reminding us of our condition; You’re wandering in sin away from God’s teaching. He does this not to condemn, but to continue offering us hope. Won’t you ask him to show you the way? Fall down on your knees in a chapel next Sunday and meet with your friends in heaven someday. Repeat

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Sources: Wikipedia + Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum + Anna Goncharova

Steve Earl

2020 has been an ongoing struggle for all of us. Maybe that's why, this Christmas I’ve been drawn to Steve Earl’s Nothing But A Child, off his Copperhead Road record. On this record, Steve blends his own free-flowing mix of gritty rock and bluegrass.

Steve’s Christmas song wasn’t written for Copperhead Road. It had originally been written for an Oak Ridge Boys record. Matter of fact, Steve credits his whole career to Oak Ridge Boys Publishing, as being the only folks in Nashville to hire him as a songwriter. Since the Oak Ridge Boys already had a wildly successful Christmas record in the 1980s, Steve was sure if he could get one of his songs on their new Christmas record, it would be financially beneficial for him and his family. Unfortunately, Steve's submission wasn’t selected. Fortunately, Steve was putting the finishing touches on Copperhead Road at the time and thought this Christmas song would make a good ending to his own record.

Critics and musicians alike raved about the first five songs on this record, while many considered the last five songs overly sentimental. According to one NY Times reviewer, the ending song on the record was little more than a ‘hokey’ Christmas song. Well, hokey or not, I've enjoyed hearing Steve's Christmas song this year and you may as well.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Sources: Steve Earl + Wikipedia + Wallpapers9

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi

Originally ordained as an Italian priest in 1703, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi later became a prolific composer who created hundreds of works including Baroque concertos. In addition to composing, he was also known as a virtuoso violinist.

Vivaldi was given the title of Master of Violin at the Devout Hospital of Mercy (an orphanage) in Venice when he was only 25. Over the next 30 years, he would compose the majority of his most famous music while employed at a hospital teaching orphans. From his short-lived career as an ordained priest, to teaching orphans, to composing wedding music for emperors and kings, Vivaldi became one of the most influential musicians of his era.

One of my favorite Vivaldi recordings, Gloria in D Major comes from the RV 589 which includes Emma Kirkby & Catherine Bott & Judith Nelson & James Bowman & Carolyn Watkinson & Simon Standage & Catherine Mackintosh & Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford & The Academy of Ancient Music & Simon Preston & Christopher Hogwood. The sound quality on this version is superb for an almost 30 year span from the RV 588 original.

Sources: Biography + FactsKing

Broken Praise

Elevation Worship is a music ministry of Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC, led by Pastor Steven Furtick. Pastor Steven, along with lead vocalist Chris Brown are credited with writing the title track on the Hallelujah Here Below album.

In an interview with CCLI, Chris covered how the original concept for the title track came from their interest in the ancient Christian Doxology and how it seemed to relate to our heavenly Father’s desire for the imperfect praise of broken people. That imperfection being held in comparison to the praises of His heavenly host.

Musically, this lengthy track (7:03) has a slow building and solemn melody of vulnerable praise with its repeating Hallelujahs in equal sets of three. Each set representing the Doxology’s proclamation for the trinity. The last stanza ends by naming Jesus Christ our King enthroned, All the praise is Yours forevermore, Hallelujah here below, All the praise is Yours.

The entire album was recorded over a night in March 2018 at Elevation Church's Ballantyne campus in Charlotte, North Carolina, where other Elevation Worship projects have also been recorded.

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Sources: CCLI + Wikipedia + Pixabay

Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet

Jubilee quartets were popular African-American religious singing groups during the early part of the 20th century. This style of music grew from universities to churches, incorporating a rhythmic beat into the energetic gospel music coming out of the Holiness churches.

Of these many jubilee quartets, the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet became the most successful of all the jubilee Doo-Wop quartets, gaining nationwide popularity through radio broadcasts, records and touring in the 1930s and 1940s. Their recording of Found A Wonderful Savior first appeared on a 45 record as the B side to Bedside of A Neighbor, in 1937.

The Golden Gates, as they were later known with an ever changing lineup over the years, revived their career in 1955. When they toured Europe, they became widely popular and moved to Paris in 1959. They continued touring, primarily in Europe and were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998.

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Sources: Sources: Wikipedia + Discogs

Emmylou Harris

Precious Memories is a traditional gospel song written by J. B. F. Wright in 1925. It’s fitting that as a native Tennessean, Wright's creation has long been recorded by several of Nashville’s finest country artists. My personal favorite being the tender soul-filled rendition by Emmylou Harris.

Emmylou Harris’ 1987 album Angel Band, originated with her producer and later husband Paul Kennerley, after finishing up the semi-autobiographical and psychologically exhausting album, The Ballad of Sally Rose.

It was Kennerley, who told her, “I really think you should do some singing just for the heck of it. ‘Let’s get some people over to my house and do some old traditional songs and record them. We won’t make a record. It’ll be just for ourselves.’”

The friends invited were Vince Gill, Carl Jackson and producer-musician Emory Gordy Jr. A year passed, before she and Kennerley got around to listening to the home recordings with their friends, but when they did, Harris was more than a little surprised.

“It was phenomenal,” she says. “The vocal performances, the sweetness, the purity of it... we said, ‘Boy, that should come out on a record.’” A year later the album was released. To this day, Angel Band remains one of Harris’ more obscure albums, but easily one of her best as well, having mostly traditional songs with a spiritual expression rarely matched.

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Sources: Chicago Tribune + Veronique Rolland + Randy Fath

Silver Leaf Quartette of Norfolk spiritual

The widely popular Silver Leaf Quartette of Norfolk was formed in 1919. Helped by singing over radio stations that covered the greater New York area, they gained a legion of fans throughout the urban centers of the Northeast and in particular New York City. In 1927, the singers began semiannual spring tours of northern cities that continued for around six years.

Their major break came in 1928, when OKeh Records signed the group to record some of their most popular numbers. With this opportunity, the Silver Leaf Quartette recorded the spiritual, “Daniel Saw The Stone.” It’s available as part of the Discography of American Historical Recordings.

In 1947, the Silver Leaf Quartette was booked long-term at Virginia Beach’s exclusive Cavalier Hotel, where they were billed as the Cavalier Singers. By this time, both William Thatch and William Boush had already dropped out of the original group. However, quartet singing was so popular throughout the late 1950s that the group reunited for local church engagements.

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Sources: Gloryland Gospel Blog + Paul Gilmore

Louise Massey Carr

In honor of a faithful Christian lady I’ve been blessed to know. She’ll be missed for a time by her family and friends. My mother-in-law was Louise Massey Carr, 1924 to 2019. We loved her and she loved us.

Mrs. Carr loved music and was once a dedicated member of the Woodlawn Baptist church choir. In addition to being a faithful choir member, she was also a dedicated teacher for the three-year-olds in Sunday School for over 36 years. Mrs. Carr loved playing the piano and telling much loved Bible stories.

During her final weeks, several nurses would say they knew she was a “praying woman” because they would often hear her talking to God and singing. One nurse even said, the last thing she overheard Mrs. Carr say was “God, help me to do something good.”

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Bob Dylan

From Bob Dylan’s last Christian album “Shot of Love,” comes one of Dylan’s 10 Greatest Songs according to Rolling Stone, the lyrically transcendent “Every Grain of Sand.” For Dylan, it was a song of humility from the pain of self-awareness and utter abandonment to the Master’s sovereignty over the natural world.

Consider the song’s last three stanzas:

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

Dylan would later describe the process for writing “Every Grain of Sand” as “an inspired song that just came to me... I felt like I was just putting words down that were coming from somewhere else.”

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Sources: Rolling Stone + pearl1125 + Exmoo

Cantique de Noel

It all began, when Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure was asked to write a poem for Christmas mass by his parish priest. Honored to share his talents with the church, Placide Cappeau penned his “Cantique de Noel” while traveling to the capital city of France, in 1847.

Cappeau felt his poem would be better suited to music, so the poet sought help from one of his friends, Adolphe Charles Adams. Adams’ masterful talent and fame brought requests to write works for orchestras and ballets from all over the world. Their finished work was performed just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

Initially accepted by many Catholic Christmas services, “Cantique de Noel” soon fell out of favor. It was banned in France for almost two decades after Placide Cappeau walked away from the church in favor of the socialist movement and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was Jewish.

Fortunately, interest in this Christmas carol was renewed with John Sullivan Dwight — an American writer and Reginald Fessenden — a former chief chemist for Thomas Edison. Dwight introduced what he considered a wonderful Christmas song to America and Fessenden spoke into a microphone for the first time in history by reading the ‘Birth of Christ’ from the gospel of Luke, on Christmas Eve 1906. After finishing his reading, Fessenden picked up his violin and played “O Holy Night,” which became, the first song ever sent through radio airwaves.

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Source: Beliefnet

Christina Rossetti

This evocative Christmas carol was originally written by Christina Rossetti as a Christmas poem for the American magazine, Scribner’s Monthly. In 1872, it was set to music by Gustav Holst for the 1906 edition of The English Hymnal.

While no one would believe there was actual snow at the birth of Jesus Christ in the Middle Eastern town of Bethlehem, Rossetti uses the poetic imagery of ‘snow on snow’ to symbolize the ‘hard like iron’ hearts of humanity into which our Savior was born, long ago. She goes on to describe how a breastful of milk and a simple manger full of hay were enough for Him, whom the Angels and Archangels fall down before in worship.

I've always been captivated by the sublime beauty within her poem, but it's the very last stanza where my connection and understanding is strongest:

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.

Titus 3:3–7

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Sources: The Complete Book of Hymns + Wikipedia + FreePik Snowflakes + Photo by Aaron Burden

My Identity

It was the first time we had written since “How Can It Be”... I just remember feeling like so much had happened the night before, wondering how do I come back down to normal, how do I come back down to reality? And I started realizing these patterns of really high highs and then, okay now there’s a low. Really high high, now there’s a low... And involving expectation in that space can just leave you kind of questioning your identity — Where do I fit in, where is my security, where is my footing?

So when writing “You Say,” I just remember feeling for the first time pretty conflicted. It was definitely the first moment in just being an artist that I was like Okay, where is all this going exactly? And I know that we’ve all faced moments in life where we can feel a crossroads happen — where we can see the past and also see the future, and realize how we are supposed to exist in the present. And it was one of those moments where I could see where things were going and I knew exactly where I came from, and I needed those worlds to still be married.

And thus brought up the issue of identity and trying to figure out how to exist when I felt like so many things were pulling me in so many different directions. I think a lot of times we build these complexes based on insecurity, based on fear, based on rejection, and lies that we have to constantly overcome. And so this song for me was just a reminder of identity. It was a reminder that I know when I’m weak, He’s strong — so how do I change and bring that into my every day life? When I feel inadequate how is it there’s always these moments where I feel like God just steps in and supersedes my inadequacies. This entire song was so every single day I would get up on stage and remind myself — no, this is the truth, this is the truth, this is the truth. Don’t get buried in confusion. Don’t get buried in waywardness. Just remember to steady the course, steady the course.

That’s the story behind “You Say.” — Lauren Daigle

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Sources: CCM Magazine + Jeremy Cowart Photo