Aretha Franklin

Amazing Grace by Aretha Franklin is considered by many critics to be one of the finest gospel albums ever recorded. On it Franklin, a 29-year old at the time and five-time Grammy Award winner, along with Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir produced a double platinum release.

Graced with her piano playing and five-part harmonizing, Wholy Holy was the first hymn Aretha preformed on the biggest selling disc of Franklin's entire career. It was all recorded live over two nights at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in January 1972. On it, Aretha's soulful voice and backing choir are a powerful reminder of the church meetings from a previous generation. This two-CD set is Aretha's amazing tribute to her gospel roots and her dynamic God given instrument.

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Sources: Rolling Stone + Boston Review + Wikipedia

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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The Spirit of Worship

Housefires was formed in 2014, as a worship band for the Grace Midtown Church, the founder of almost 50 house churches in and around the metropolitan Atlanta, GA area. Since that time, the band has released four live worship albums. Current band members include worship pastor Kirby Kaple, worship leaders and vocal/guitarists Pat Barrett, the co-writer of the song “Good Good Father” and Tony Brown, worship pastor and vocal/guitarist Nate Moore, violinist Vicki Schmidt, keyboardist Jonathan Jay, percussionists Zac Brooks and Harold Brown. The single “Abide” was written by Nate Moore with musician Mia Fieldes and composer Jonathan Smith off their 2016 “Housefires III” album release.

The band’s goal was to create a fresh, more stripped-down expression of worship and music. As Nate Moore, explains, “What we’ve said from the beginning is that we want to go after moments... We have a set list and songs to fall back on, but really the heart and core is to engage and facilitate God moments, breathing active moments, to create enough space to where God can speak and move and anything can happen.”

This spirit of worship can truly be heard in their hearts and music.

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Sources: The Christian Beat + Wikipedia