Category Archives: Songwriting

Living to a Different Rhythm: Join Me in January on Retreat

Sep 17

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The Academy provides a setting for prayer, worship and personal spiritual growth in an extended retreat setting

Longing For God    

A 5-Day Retreat Featuring Dr. Gary Furr & Sr. Dawn Mills

Jan 27 – Feb 1, 2019

 I will be presenting daily lectures and music for the 5 Day Academy for Spiritual Formation at Camp Sumataunga, Alabama, near Gadsden. The Academy “is an ecumenical, 5-day retreat designed for clergy and laity. Our purpose is simple: to deepen our relationship with God through a daily rhythm of prayer, worship, study, and reflection.”

Twenty five years ago, this program was life-changing for me. At that time I was coping with a too-busy life, a personal quest for greater meaning in my life, and the loneliness of pastoral ministry. My search led me to one of the earliest Academies. I have written about this in two books, For Faith and Friendship and in Encountering God in the Prayers of Others. 

If anything, the relentless pace of our current culture is far worse for all of us than it was for me then. Phones, screens and the pace of life it brings keep us artificially connected and disconnected from one another and deeper reality. Consider the phrase, “virtual life,” and that this means something very much like something else, but not identical to it. What is “the real?” Something about getting off the treadmill, finding solitude and striving for deeper community together with others opens up new focus for the seeker. That is what the Academy seeks to provide.

Come away for five days and live a different rhythm of life and community as Sister Dawn Mills and I speak daily. She is speaking on the long classical tradition of Christian spiritual disciplines in life and I will be speaking on “Five Uneasy Pieces: The Creative Dynamics of the Spiritual Journey.”  

The arts and artists come to the longing for the divine in ways that are instructive for persons and communities of faith. We can learn from them. Hope you can join me as we listen to the creation through writing, music, visual art and prayer to move deeper toward God. I believe that in these cultural areas of life we often find surprisingly deep spiritual longings, even with the commercialism and all that goes with that world. In the arts, human beings often find they are on an unconsciously ancient way, one that is often described as “pilgrimage.” If this calls your name, come join us this winter. It may be the best five days of your life in a long time. I will incorporate my music as part of the retreat.

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Posted in Academy for Spiritual Formation, Art, creation, Creativity, Music, Narrative, Prayer, Retreats, Songwriting, Spiritual disciplines, Spirituality, spirituality, Story, Theology and Life

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Dr. Gary Furr and Friends with Pat Terry in Concert

Mar 2

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Next Thursday, I’ll be in concert, sharing the evening with my great songwriter friend, PAT TERRY. Joining me for my set will be DOn Wendorf on mandolin and tenor banjo, Mark Weldon on fiddle and cello, and Rachel Turner on bass and backup vocals. It will be a great evening of music–original songs in a variety of styles.  I hope you can come out if you are in Birmingham or central Alabama!

7:30 pm, Doors open at 7 

$12 per person

Moonlight on the Mountain 
585 Shades Crest Rd  Hoover,  AL  

(205) 317-4364

facebook @moonlightonthemtn

Pat is finishing a new CD and I’ve got some brand new songs to roll out.

More ABOUT PAT

More about Gary Furr & Friends

Posted in Americana, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, CONCERT, Dr. Gary Furr & Friends, Folk, folk music, Gospel music, Music, Narrative, Songwriting, Songwriting, Story

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It’s Simple: Buy Some Music, Help Mothers and Children in Alabama

Jan 20

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For every album download sold during January-March, I will give $5.00 to the Coalition toward its project of an app for mothers and children to use for help!  For every single sold, I will give .50 cents!  Enjoy some music and help out a great project! Tell a friend and help us fund a project

Buy link:  GARY FURR MUSIC

I am spearheading a new Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children. The coalition, formed in 2016, is comprised of a group of healthcare, medical, faith, academic and para-health organizations and leaders who seek to collaborate their efforts to better serve the needs of mothers and children in Alabama. The Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children offers a robust networking system for better efficiency of programs through partnerships and support as well as a powerful force for advocacy for these families.  We  seek to be a voice for those who are often disconnected from help, and build partnerships across the usual lines of specializations, religious affiliations and other ways that sometimes lead to isolation or lack of awareness.

Right now we are undertaking to create an app to be given away in our state that helps young mothers with infants and young children find the many organizations that stand ready to encourage them and give assistance to give their child the best start possible. We are raising funds for the creation of the app and for the internships to gather the information. There are two ways you can help. First, if you’d like to simply give something, you can donate through our PayPal button.  Second, for the months of January, I’m offering to give all income from my songs to the Coalition to help spark our drive. Go to my downloads here and buy a song for $.99 or a CD for $6.99-8.99 and $5 from CDs and .50 cents from songs goes straight to the cause. You can help me by asking a friend to “buy a song for kids.”   Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Alabama, Children, Family, folk music, Gary Furr music, Gospel music, Love, Ministry, Songwriting

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Come to the Virginia Mountains With Me! Sept. 28-30

Jul 24

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Vickie and I are leading a Fall Senior Adult Trip to the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia September 28-30, 2017. We will leave Birmingham on Thursday and return on Saturday eveningt.  I’ll be doing a little playing and singing of old time music and gospel songs as we travel to the beautiful setting of the birth of country music and the location of the State Theatre of Virginia to see some topnotch plays by an outstanding professional ensemble. We have traveled there before and had a great time.

Your payment includes:
• Three Plays at the Barter Theatre! “Sherlock Holmes and the
American Problem”, “Clementine” and “The Music Man”.
• Backstage tour of the Barter Theatre by Katy Brown
The Barter is the State Theater of Virginia and opened on June 10, 1933 making it the nation’s longest running professional theatre. In 1946,

Katy Brown

Barter Theatre was designated as the State Theatre of Virginia. Today, Many well-known stars of stage, screen and television have performed early in their careers at Barter, including: Gregory Peck, Ernest Borgnine, Patricia Neal, Ned Beatty, Hume Cronyn, Gary Collins, Frances Fisher, Larry Linville, and Jim Varney Katy Brown is an
Associate Artistic Director of Barter Theatre and is pleased to be in her eighteenth year at the theatre. She has directed more than 90 Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in America, Americana, Americana, Art, Bluegrass, Country Music, fiddle tunes, Folk, folk music, Gospel music, history, Hymns, Music, Narrative, Old-time music, Songwriting, Story

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Down in Bethlehem

Jul 6

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Today I am beginning a series of blogs about songs, more specifically songs I have written. I want to write a little about their “births,” as for me, songs are like children, or at least like the ugly ash tray I made out of clay at camp. They are mine, they mean something to me, and I still love singing them. Today, I’ll start with the first cut on my new album, “Down in Bethlehem.” I actually came up with the idea while writing a sermon, I guess it was during Advent of 2015. It’s a bit weird, really, to think of a third of humanity gathering every week to reflect on a two thousand year old set of texts, but in a time when we obsess over the latest thing, it’s a little comforting to me that we can mull over the same writing again and again, and like some prism being slowly turned in daylight, new colors of insight come.

I was struck by the commonality of the major stories about Bethlehem, that of Ruth, a Moabite widow who came as a foreigner immigrating back to her husband’s home’ David, the youngest of eight, who was selected by the prophet Samuel to replace Saul as king, and Jesus, born to a young couple shrouded in unimportance.  Again and again, in the Bible, God “chooses” to work with the “Most Likely Not to Be Chosen.” First I wrote a short poem to use in the sermon, then was haunted by it until this song came.

I was thinking about U2, Springsteen, music that is simple, driving, repetitive and building over time. Brent Warren does some really fine electric guitar work on this cut.  Take a listen and enjoy!  BUY or listen to it here. It still is true, I believe, that hope is a powerful and inexplicable reality, one that rises up unexpectedly and in the most unpromising of moments. That is when I suspect God might be up to something.  (see Ruth, 1 Samuel 16, Matthew 2 for the stories behind the song).  I’ve posted the whole song on my website for a week or so.  https://www.reverbnation.com/garyfurrmusic

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Posted in Advent, Americana, Americana, Art, Christianity, Christmas, Culture, Faith, folk music, Gary Furr music, Hope, humanity, Indie Music, Jesus, Songwriting, Songwriting, Spirituality, Story, Suffering, Theology

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COMING UP SMA on Dugger Mountain Theater

Jun 22

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Shades Mountain Air on “Dugger Mountain Music Hall,”

ALABAMA PUBLIC TELEVISION (APTV) Tuesday, June 27 at 10:30 pm

Back in May, Shades Mountain Air (myself, Nancy McLemore, Don Wendorf, Greg Womble and Melanie Rodgers) loaded up and traveled to Dugger Mountain Music Hall in Piedmont, Alabama. It sits in as unlikely a spot as the crossroads where the boys in “O Brother Where Art Thou” picked up Tommy Johnson on the way to Tishomingo. DMMH came from the vision and ministry of Bob McLeod, a talented and charismatic former professional musician and studio engineer.  Following a profound personal spiritual crisis, Bob McLeod began to seek to minister to people in trouble–in prisons, jails, streets, and those caught in addiction.

Eventually he established Dugger Mountain Music Hall as the public face of Our Father’s Arms, where they take in people in need of help.   He describes the place as “a Christ centered family.” It is located in the middle of open country north of Anniston, Alabama in a former Baptist church that had ceased to exist. The building was given to him for a ministry, and he brought together his love of music with the ministry.  Fast forward, now the facilities include a 30 acre farm with a home for men; a 3 acre home nearby for women, mothers and their children known as Eagles Nest; and a state-of-the-art recording studio, offices, fellowship hall and the Dugger Mountain Music Hall. In 2010, the television program was born.  On the nights of performances, they open the doors to welcome the community, enjoy supper and bands and performers, some touring through and others from nearby places in Alabama, perform. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Americana, Art, Blues, Concert, Country Music, Dugger Mountain Music Hall, folk music, Gospel music, Hope, Old-time music, Songwriting

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Songwriters Workshop this week at ALABAMA FOLK SCHOOL

Mar 15

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I am going to the ALABAMA FOLK SCHOOL this Friday for the Songwriting workshop with Sally Barris and Tom Kimmel! Some scholarship may still be available if you’re interested, check in with the good folks there. Come join me! All levels welcome. Turn off cable news and turn some of your angst into useful art!

Posted in Americana, Art, Bluegrass, Music, Songwriting

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Reality

Aug 15

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Someone asked me for this short paragraph from my sermon yesterday. I thought I might as well share it with you all, for what it’s worth. I was focused on the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah, which speaks of the challenges of leadership and the power of the Living God to help us.  I said, toward the end, these words:

“There is always hope, but it never comes without cost or pain or struggle. There is always a future, but never at the expense of our past. There is always Presence, but it is not always comforting and pleasant. There is always a way forward but it is never found by evasion or running away from the hard places.”

Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton

They are my words, not a quote. They come from my experience of life, both the good and the disappointing parts of myself I’ve known. I hope they help you. Two other great quotes I used:

I heard an ad executive on Ted Talks say this:  “Poetry makes new things familiar and familiar things new.”

And this one from G. K. Chesterton,  The Everlasting Man  “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”  Don’t worry so much when things get torn up.

Or, as Leonard Cohen said in his wonderful lyric, “Anthem,”

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in

Leonard Cohen

Posted in Art, Conflict, Disappointment, Hope, humanity, Love, Memory, Narrative, Poetry, Songwriting, Suffering, Theology, Writing

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All Americana Night with Gary Furr and Keith Elder

Jun 27

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All Americana Night  Come on, join in.

Wednesday evening, June 29, 6-7 pm

Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama 35216

Wednesday evening at 6 pm, at Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, we will have “All Americana Night.” My friend, Keith Elder, and bandmate Don Wendorf, will join me to lead us in singing distinctively American songs from all kinds of “roots” traditions.

Keith            Wikipedia defines “Americana” as “contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B and blues.” We want to have fun, sing some songs from the traditions themselves, as well as some originals. Songs for kids to join along, a few hymns and patriotic songs, a little of everything for those who come.  Hope you’ll come out.

Keith was at our congregation on a Wednesday night recentlyhere a few weeks back and did a great job on a Wednesday night. Keith has spoken and performed for over thirty years in a wide variety of church, conference, and community settings. After serving local churches in North Alabama as a youth director then as a pastor, he spent a number of years as a songwriter in Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Americana, Americana, Art, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, Country Music, fiddle tunes, Folk, Gospel music, Hymns, Keith Elder, Music, Songwriting, Uncategorized

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Concert Thursday at Moonlight On the Mountain!

Gary Furr and Friends Moonlight

 

Hope those of you in the Birmingham Area can come out Thursday night to one of the finest music listening venues anywhere!  As Shades Mountain Air takes a little break, I have a great new band together to help me present a concert that is, with only a few covers, almost all original songs, and many of them in concert for the first time.  Brent Warren will be on guitars, vocals and mandolin.  Brent is a multitalented musician well known to the Alabama bluegrass community, but his musical chops venture into rock, folk, and about anything that interests him.  Mark Weldon has filled in occasionally with Shades Mountain Air.  Mark is a phenomenal musician, former member of Three On a String and many other bands, including After Class.  His work on the violin brings great musical chops to my songs. Don Wendorf is my longtime musical brother from SMA and plays a little of everything –harmonica, mandola, mandolin, drums, old time banjo, and vocals. Last, but not least, Rachel Turner, a fine bass player and singer with the Flying Jenny Old TIme String Band, joins us to expand her horizons.  I am so grateful for this wonderful set of friends who are helping me out, and we have worked up some exciting new arrangements and songs.  I’m excited!  Hope you can be with us.  I’ll have CDs, my new book, POEMS, PRAYERS AND UNFINISHED PROMISES and all CDs and books will be on sale!  Don’t want to haul them home.  I promise–a fun night and a few surprises!

 

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